The Glowing Stars
by wibblywobblywhogirl
Summary: A quick late-night hike to clear the pain of a migraine and a solitary life turns Evelyn's existence into something extraordinary when, with the help of a mad man in a blue box, she discovers that she has the ability to do truly amazing, impossible things, things a human should be simply unable to do. The catch? She endangers herself and others each and every day...
1. A Late Night Stroll

_Glowing stars. I am 21 years old and I still have glowing stars on my ceiling._

The little plastic stars glow faintly, a remnant from when I had turned my light off 2 hours before.

_3 a.m. and I am still awake, thinking, despairing, in wonder. My mind is whirling, always aching._

I turn over onto my side, for the seven thousandth time that night, as all nights, and close my eyes. The thought of waking up in four hours makes me feel numb and a tad bit bitter.

_If I could just sneak out, get to the Falls…_

My dorm is closed up tight at this time of night, but I am an experienced adventurer, and an adventurer has her ways. What's four hours of sleep anyway?

I throw my blanket back, change into some adventure appropriate clothing (all black athletic clothing, complete with gym shoes and a sports bra. Never know when you'll need to run.), throw my hair up into an angrily messy bun, snatch a flashlight and headlamp, and quietly close my door behind me. I sneak down the stairs, open the alarmed, exit only door, in my own specially devised manner. If you stick something, like a credit card, between the trip of the alarm and where it's attached to the door, it won't go off. Brilliant.

I slip out into the night and get into my old beat up car, whom I have affectionately named Derek. It's a peaceful twenty minute drive into the mountains from my university, one that I have grown to love. It's moments like these that I am so very glad that the Falls are open 24/7. You never know when you'll need a dose of solace from good old Daniel Boone. For me, that seems to be more and more often, nowadays. The forest has been my rock for the past three years. No human seems to be able to fill his place in my life, that vast, old forest.

_A lonely and beautiful existence I have._

I forsake my headlamp and hike to my usual thinking spot. A secluded, difficult to reach, and rocky perch on the cliff-face above the Falls. You can see it all, in its ancient roaring splendor, yet hardly anyone would be able to see you. The moon is full, luckily, and it sparkles and dances across the rushing water like silver dust. Finally, what seems like the constant screaming in my head ceases. Not screaming, per se… But, a cacophony of chords, sounds, music. Ever since my eighteenth birthday, the migraines have been a part of my life, and in the solitude of the forest is the only place they can subside.

An hour passes, and the cold water vapor is starting to get to me, to soak my bones. I shift my position on my perch to bring my knees up to my chest, and a loud clank sounds over the roar of the Falls. My flashlight. It's just on the rock below me, and I have climbed up and down this cliff-face many times. Yet, as I look around me, an uneasy feeling settles in my heart. I can feel a disturbance, eyes upon me. The sound must have drawn attention. Perhaps a bear, a coyote. I've dealt with both. They tend not to give me much trouble. In the past, they simply have run away from me the minute I approached them. Not very threatening, in my opinion. People over-react when it comes to nature, I say.

I let myself slide down my perch until I'm dangling over the rock below me, where my flashlight lays. I let go and allow myself to drop onto it, lightly and gently. I pause, still in a crouch, my eyes scanning the cliffs, searching for movement. When I find none, I turn to grab my flashlight.

_Eyes. Giant, beady eyes. Staring at me, staring, impossible._

Instinctively, I freeze, my lips drawn back over my teeth slightly. The creature before me is shrouded in the darkness, hidden by the shade of my perch above us. The moonlight cannot touch it.

Should I jump? I am hundreds of feet above the Falls. Not even solid ground. I'd be sucked underwater the minute I landed anyway. There's no where to go, not really. I could climb. But how fast can I climb? How fast is this creature…

Barely a second has passed, but it feels like an eternity.

_I need to know what I'm dealing with._

I reach for my flashlight, slowly, carefully. Three feet away, the creature emits a clicking sound. A warning.

_Then it is threatened. Not a good sign for me._

My fingers wrap around the flashlight, and I bring it up slowly. I switch it on and immediately regret my decision. A gigantic humanoid creature crouches before me, cowering in the cove. It clicks madly, a deep rumbling sounding from its thorax. My breath catches in my throat, and it's all very well, because suddenly a gas erupts from the creature. I don't have time to contemplate what just happened, because before I know it, I have lurched backward too far. I am tumbling, hundreds of feet. Air whistles past my face, as if it's frantic about my imminent doom. Oddly, before I hit the water, not a single thought enters my mind. Only the feeling of my migraine intensifying.

The air is sucked from my lungs as the freezing water embraces me. I curl into a ball, and let the current thrash me about. I'm immediately at the base of the falls, so I know that there's no hope. Not really. My migraine throbs in time with my frenzied heart.

_What will my parents think? Will they find my body? Will they even know where to look?_

I suddenly feel a fire light in me, and a blast of light bursts before my eyes, what I assume to be lack of oxygen affecting my sight. I can't let my parents be hurt so deeply and completely, not without even trying to fight for them. What kind of selfish, good for nothing human being doesn't fight for its loved ones?

So I try to orient myself towards the sky, keyword _try_, and thrash in that general direction. I feel the current move around me, and suddenly my migraine lifts like a gigantic weight off of my poor brain. My mind rushes to understand what's happening, but the water actually propels me out of the river. Before I know it I am soaring, careening through the air and towards the beach, which is at least a half a mile from the base of the Falls. A scream rips out of my throat at last, and echoes through the river valley, between the mountains, and beyond. The sand rises to meet me so fast that all I can do is shield my face from ramming into it. I land roughly, rolling until I finally stop, a heap of legs and arms and loose dark hair. I lay still a moment, just breathing.

**_What?_**

Someone clears their throat. I startle so badly that I choke on my own spit, and struggle to stand up. Sand pours off of me like the Falls themselves, and I rub my eyes, trying to focus on the figure in front of me.

"Who's there?" I say, coughing and sputtering, rubbing sand from my eyes.

"A naiadorph? No, they can only keep human form for a few seconds… Can't be human though, not with that little display, uh uh.."

It's a man, that much I can tell through the grains in my eyes. He's tall, and in the moonlight, his features are difficult to make out, but I can see large eyes. Large, bright eyes, looking at me as if I am the most interesting thing to see in the whole world.

"Please, who are you?" I say, exasperated and suddenly very… very tired. I sway, dropping to my knees. The man rushes to me, and gently grabs my shoulders to support me.

"Whoa there, easy. You've expended a lot of energy doing what you just did. Manipulating matter to your will takes a lot out of you, huh?" he says, and now that he's closer I can see him better. Those large eyes, now burning with both interest and concern. His lips are thin, closed tight in a taut line as if he is deep in thought. His hair is going all directions, this way and that, like a young mad scientist. He can't be much older than I am. Though those eyes, they seem to hold too much to be young at all.

"I'm okay," I murmur, and attempt to stand again, "Just… Did you see it?"

He only looks at me, and the last thing I comprehend before I bite it is his arms catching me again.


	2. Beautiful and Strange

I inhale deeply as my mind stirs to life again. The first thing I notice is an absence of weight in my head. No migraine. No pain in the brain. Joy begins to lift my spirit until I remember.

I shoot up, from what I discover is a bed with amazing bright orange sheets, made of a silk-type material. Yet it's not silk, it feels like water in my hands, the material somehow moves like water. I stroke it for a few moments, then look up to take in my surroundings. I'm in a large room, with strange, curved structures jutting from the ceiling all the way to the floors, circling the room as some sort of odd column support system. Not an architecture I've ever seen before. The only light in the room comes from odd pulsating lights, lining the curved columns. Sometimes its white light, sometimes it has an orange hue.

_Beautiful. Beautiful and strange. _

Besides the bed and long desk on the other side of the room, nothing else occupies it. The desk has flasks and bulbs filled with solutions, bubbling with no one to attend them. The good little scientist in me shies away from this poor lab safety practice. I swing my legs out of the bed, immediately regretting the absence of the delightfully cooling sheets. The only doorway lays to my left, so I head towards it. My feet are bare, but luckily I am still clothed in my original clothing. How embarrassing to think of a stranger taking care of me like I am a defenseless child.

In the next room, there is so much that I don't understand, that I stand for several minutes, just staring. It's another large circular room, except this one is much, much busier than the last I had seen. A console sits in the very center of the room, circular and massive, beeping and booping. It looks like an inverted cockpit, with so many buttons to push and an abundance of levers to pull. The same curved columns snake from the ceiling to the ground, with the same lights only these are white and blue lights, with some yellow thrown in haphazardly. I walk forward finally, to investigate, but I am interrupted. The man opens a door, what appears to be the exit, as a ramp proceeds it up to the console. When he turns towards me, I see two bags in his hand. They're Wendy's bags, and the scent of delightful fried food wafts to my nose. My stomach clenches, growling unhappily, and my hand immediately covers it as if it will shut it up.

"Hungry, are we? I'd be too, if I were you!" The man says. His voice is a bit loud, boisterous, as if he has so much to be happy about. I take him in, this time carefully examining him.

He's wearing rather nice clothing under a long brown coat. A black pin-stripe day suit with a red tie. He's very tall and lanky, but it suits him. His face is square, framing those large, burning light gold eyes like a picture. His hair is still tousled and I now see, without the moon whitewashing everything, that it is a chocolate brown, a bit lighter than my own. He watches me watching him, and smiles a bit. Suddenly, I am conscious of my knotted hair and my old nervous tic of smoothing it occurs.

"Yeah, actually, I am… But if you don't mind, I'd like a few answers." I say slowly, walking towards him, trying to come off as unafraid.

"Oh of course, you must be in a bit of a tizzy. Eat first, and I'll answer anything, but you need fuel. Don't want you passing out again, eh?" He says, handing me a bag, and sitting on the floor beside the console with the other bag. I look around for a table to sit at and eat, and there is none. Strange man.

I sit in front of him on the floor, and watch him take a big bite out of a burger. Such a normal action makes me feel a little more at ease, so I take a peek at what he got me. A burger, and my favorite salad, a specialty salad from Wendy's with pecans and apples in it. I cock my head slightly, wondering if it was a lucky guess, or if he knows me from somewhere. As I bite into the burger, I take another good look at him.

_No, he's not familiar in the least. I'd remember._

"So, you have questions?" He says, his mouth full of chewed up burger. For some reason this is very comical, his lanky legs criss-cross apple-sauced, and his mouth full of food, and I smile, laughing a bit.

"Yes! So many.."

"Have at it then, go on, don't be shy, take your best shot!"

"Alright, who are you?"

"I am the Doctor," he says, and I raise an eyebrow.

"Doctor…. Doctor who?"

He sighs, and takes another bite.

"Just the Doctor."

I take another bite, searching for sign of a joke in his eyes.

"Alright then, the Doctor-"

"Just Doctor if you please."

I chuckle and get my salad out greedily. I didn't realize how famished I was.

"Good, then, Doctor… Why were you at the Falls last night?"

"The T.A.R.D.I.S brought me. Sometimes she does that, takes her own prerogative," he says, glancing around. "Isn't that right?"

"Who are you talking to?" I ask, glancing around as well.

"The T.A.R.D.I.S! Stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. She's temperamental, this one. I just came from sixteenth century France, wanting to go to the Third Millennium Z-sector and she brings me to 21st century America. More often than not, there's a reason. And I think I might have found it," He says, his eyes landing on me intently.

"What, me? So your time machine and teleporter brought you to me. You have a time machine and teleporter. Seriously, I asked for answers, not riddles." I say, starting to get angry.

"I'm being as upfront as you can be about intertemporal travel. I promise I'm not lying to you. And I can prove it."

"Then prove it, Doctor," I say, finishing up my meal. "And thank you for the Wendy's."  
He smiles madly, and leaps up, abandoning his fries completely.

"Prepare yourself, hold on to your perception of reality because it's about to be blasted as far out of the water as you were!" He shouts, twisting all kinds of knobs and pushing buttons on the console as if it were all as simple as pushing the gas in a car. The whole room lurches and suddenly we are at a 45 degree angle, and I am holding onto a column for dear life.

"What's happening?" I shout, as sound fills the room. A whooshing, rushing sound, like we are careening through the air, blasts all around us.

"Science!" He shouts back, and then all is still.


	3. Time Lords, Two Hearts, and Toxicity

I realize that my eyes had been squeezed shut, and when I open them, nothing has changed. All is as it was.

"Well?" I say, and the Doctor grins.

"Open that door." He says, his tone a bit smug. So I get up and walk down the ramp to the only door in the room. I glance at the Doctor before giving the door a push. He waggles his thick eyebrows in encouragement. So I do it, and all my eyes can see is fire.

_The sun, flaring, angry, full of rage and power. _

The breath leaves my lungs in one big gust, and my eyes nearly bug out of their sockets.

"How am I…. How…. Why are we not burning up? How is this possible?" I whisper, and the Doctor stands behind me, his presence somehow reassuring.

"The T.A.R.D.I.S has a protective shield, covers us from it all. Everything from meteors to radiation to solar flares."

As if right on cue, an arch of fire blasts its way up towards us, and the T.A.R.D.I.S shakes a little, but nothing more.

"This is amazing. Wonderful… Fantastic!" I exclaim, turning to look at him. He smiles so widely at me that I can't help but be infected by his enthusiasm. I stare at the sun again, and a thought makes me laugh.

"What is it?" He asks, walking back to the console.

"It's just… my mom always told me not to stare at the sun."

He lets out a single, boisterous laugh, and then he is turning knobs and punching buttons at light speed again.

"Wait, how can you ever take your eyes off of it, Doctor? Can't we stay a bit?" I say quietly, leaning on the doorframe and gazing into our star, the source of all life on Earth. When he doesn't answer I turn to look at him, and he is looking back. Oh, he is surely looking back. Something in his eyes makes me shiver, and I turn away before he can see my blush.

_You don't even know this man. He won't give you a real name. He could be in the process of kidnapping you, and what are you doing? Blushing like a 12 year old school girl._

"Doctor," I say. Again, he is behind me.

"How am I here? I mean, what exactly happened last night? Why did you take me with you? What did I see? I'm so confused." I say, and he stares at the Sun for a long while before gesturing for me to follow him. I do, and when we cross into the next room, it's… well it's different. The bed is gone, and in its place is a cozy living room, with a tea table and little fireplace. The chairs are extraordinary, like most of the stuff on this crazy place. He sits in one, and I sit on the loveseat across from him.

"How did-"

"The T.A.R.D.I.S is sentient, and can provide whatever her passengers need at the moment." He says, and I nod, just accepting the explanation for now.

"Excuse my manners, I never even asked! What is your name?" He exclaims, and I smile a bit.

"I'm Evelyn. Evelyn Crenshaw."

He smiles back as if delighted, and nods.

"Very well, Evelyn Crenshaw-"

"You can call me Evy, that's what everyone else calls me." I say.

"Evy, then. You… are a human." He says as if this is breaking news.

"What else would I be?" I say slowly.

"Well, anything, really! You could be a naiadorph, an Aeridian, a Vulkin, the list goes on. There are so many to be! Yet, your display last night narrows it down, and I did some tests-"

"Tests?!"

"-and your DNA appears to be entirely normal. So extremely human, that it doesn't make any sense. You shouldn't, by all accounts, be able to manipulate matter to your will. You just shouldn't."

"Manipulate matter? You mean what happened to the river?"

"Yes, and the spontaneously creating fire, and the changing of air currents, and the shifting of the ground to cushion your fall."

"Wait, what? Say all that again."

"Evy, I saw you go down, and I saw you create fire underwater. You caused the water to move around you, to benefit you, to save your life. You told the earth to help you and it did. Rose up to meet you, and cradled you when you hit."

I was silent, just trying to understand what he was saying. He was saying I had… some sort of superpower.

"By manipulate matter, you mean that… I have telekinesis?"

"No, no that's different. That involves projection of psychic energy fields. What you're doing seems to be manipulating the bonds between the atomic element components of the matter, such as water and Silicon Oxide, and causing it to be attracted to move in a direction of your choosing… But how? How can a human do that? It's simply unheard of."

"I would need to have some kind of large source of energy in order to do that though…" I say, my eyes upward in thought. The Doctor is smiling at me when I look at him again.

"You're a bright one, aren't you Miss Crenshaw?" he says.

"I'd hope so, I'm going to be going into Veterinary School in a few years," I say, smirking.

"Ah, the compassion of a human for a less sentient being. Simply beautiful." He says.

"Doctor, you say that as if you… you know, aren't human."

He just looks at me, his smile fading and his eyes very distant. I fear I've said the wrong thing, but then he snaps back to the present. Where ever he just was, I don't envy him.

"That's because I'm not. I'm a Time Lord."

_Wait, what?_

"Wait, what?" I say, echoing my thoughts, and his lips turn ever so slightly upward.

"Not human. Time Lord. Two hearts and a whole lot more energy!"

"Two hearts," I repeat, "But you look so human. So average and normal. Well not average, but- you look human." I say, my face heating a bit.

"We are similar in appearance, yes." He replies simply.

"So then, if you're not human, then where are you from?" I ask, so curious now that I find myself leaning forward, looking like a child at story-time, and not caring one bit.

He looks down, and again, I know I have dug too deep. Something must have happened, something to do with his family, or his home.

"You don't want to hear about my old planet! It's beautiful, but boring."

I smile and decide to let him evade it. The pain I feel rolling off of him makes me shy away from the question, as well.

"Well alright, then. What was the thing that I saw last night?"

"Well what did it look like?"

I think back to that speedy chain of events, blurry but engrained into my mind.

"It was… tall, as tall as a man. It had a three sectioned body, like an ant. It's eyes were huge and black, beady like a fly's. The strangest thing though, it blew gas at me when I startled it. It didn't seem to want to pick a fight, but it definitely reacted defensively enough. It was a thick, heavy gas, too."

He was quiet for a while, mumbling to himself.

"Was it a metallic purple?" he asked, and I tried to think harder, biting my lip. When I looked back at him, his eyes were fixed on my lip, but they quickly rose to meet mine.

"It was hard to tell, it happened so quickly. But I think it was."

He stood up suddenly.

"Did you breathe the gas?" he asked quickly.

"I… I might have breathed a little bit of it before I fell. Why, what's wrong? What was that thing?"

He began to pace in front of the loveseat I sat in.

"I think it was an Andrusian, an insectoid from the D-sector of the… From the galaxy next door to yours. And If I am right, you're about to have some nasty side-effects. Even a tenth of a liter of that organic gas can be lethal to some species. Not sure how humans react though, but from your general physiology, I'm guessing not very well."

My heart skipped a beat.

"So, then what? I just wait to die? What can I do?"

"I'll need a sample of the gas from the Andrusian who infected you. From that I can use the same compounds to create an antidote, get your immune system vamped up a bit, and you'll be just fine."

I stand up, jam my feet into my shoes, and start to head into the other room.

"Well, then let's get going! We have to find that thing before it can move too far into the forest. I can track it, but it'll get harder and harder the longer we wait." I say, and he grabs my hand. I whip around to look at him, and I can tell he sees the fear in my eyes.

"Evy," he says softly, "It's going to be okay. Just calm down. Body heat tends to unnecessarily speed reactions such as this to their end stage."

I take a deep breath, and squeeze his hand.

"You're right," I say, looking down. I notice my knees wobbling a bit. "I've just never been infected by Andrusian gas before."

He chuckles, and I feel his hand under my chin, lifting it to meet his eyes. "I won't let you be harmed, Evelyn."

A blush slowly rises in my cheeks as he continues to look into my amber eyes. He notices it before dropping his hand, and leading me into the console room of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"21st century, what was that place exactly?"

"Daniel Boone Forest, Cumberland Falls, Kentucky, USA," I reply quickly, and he mutters numbers under his breath before working his magic on the console, and again we are thrown around the room like ragdolls.

When we land, immediately I rush to the door, and yank it open. Daylight and crisp air greet me and I take a deep breath.

_I feel fine now but how long is that going to last, huh?_


	4. Hunting the Hunted

"Let's get back up to my perch and we'll go from there." I say and we step out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. When I glance back, I see no spaceship, no time machine, but a blue phone box. A police phone box, to be exact.

"Doctor…"

"It's a disguise. Camouflage. And yes, it is bigger on the inside. Time Lord technology." He replies, walking ahead of me. In the wrong direction. We've landed on the beach, where I crash landed.

"Doctor, this way," I call, and he turns on his heel and heads back towards me, grinning. I can't help but laugh, despite the circumstances. Infected by a toxic alien gas with unknown compounds that are attacking my body at this very second, but still somehow enjoying every second so far. So far…

After walking a while in companionable silence, and him asking me a few times how I felt, we reached the log bridge that crosses the Cumberland River. Usually I keep my focus, for fear of slipping and falling in. But this time… Knowing what I could possibly do, I don't fear the water. In fact, I want to do it again. I want to try to repeat what I had done last night.

"Doctor, hold up a minute," I say, and he turns quickly, watching me like a hawk, as if he fears I may fall. I don't.

I look at the water for a bit, trying to feel it, looking inside myself for the will to repeat last night's anomaly. I feel nothing.

I try to think about what may have been different last night. All I can think of is that I was wearing socks, and that I had felt my migraine last night.

"Doctor, do you think having a migraine could mean anything? I mean, in regards to what I did?" I ask, and he squints his eyes, thinking.

"Could be. We'd need to do a brain activity scan to know for sure. We can do that next time you have a migraine."

_How long am I going to be staying with the Doctor? Another night? A month?_

We continue on, taking turns leading the way, until we reach the path leading to my perch. We climb down the cliff, until we reach that fateful rock, and I see the Doctor crinkle up his nose, as if smelling something foul.

"Do you smell it?" he asks.

I sniff the air a few times, but it just smells like water and earth to me.

"No, what is it?"

"Have you ever crushed a, what is it," he says, snapping his fingers, "a ladybug!"

"Well, not on purpose…" I say.

"Of course, of course, love for all animals and such, indeed. But, you know that smell they give off, their distress pheromone? That's what this is reminiscent of, for a human, I suppose. That poor Andrusian, you gave him quite the scare."

I scoff, faking offense.

"Oh and the fact that he startled me off of a cliff and into a raging waterfall just doesn't count here?"

"Well he is a guest on your planet, and all that…" he says, grinning and standing up to climb back up the cliff.

"Oh how rude of me, where were my manners? What a poor hostess I am," I laugh, and begin searching the grass and dirt covering the rock for tracks. I find some, and they're very predictably alien.

"These will be easy to distinguish. Strange, very strange. A three pronged, two-toe structure of the foot, with an arch right smack dab in the center. He must be heavy with that thick exoskeleton, and the ground is relatively soft" I say to myself, and stand up to see I have an audience. The Doctor is watching me intently.

"How did you learn all that? This hunting and tracking stuff, if you're such a sweet animal lover?" he asks, genuinely interested.

I begin to climb up the rocks after him, and he grabs me, practically lifting me up with one hand effortlessly.

_Right… Alien. Alien strength? Or just normal muscles? Would it be weird if I asked? Hmm…_

"Well, I've always loved the outdoors, so it just came naturally to learn how to live in it. I can use a bow, start a fire, and track animals, but that's about it. I don't hunt. Well, I haven't hunted. I would if I absolutely had to, but since the occasion hasn't arisen yet…"

"I see. Very good." He says shortly. I take the lead, and stop every so often when I find a fresh track. It eventually leads us off the trail and into the brush, making it harder to spot the tracks, but easier to see where it went.

"See these broken branches and flattened ferns? He's making it really easy for…" I trail off as something catches my eye. A black, liquid substance stains a tree trunk a few yards ahead, on the trail left by the Andrusian.

"Doctor, do Andrusians bleed?" I ask, walking forward and reaching to press my fingers against it. My hand is suddenly enveloped in the Doctor's.

"Yes. Very toxic to curious humans." He says, his eyes roving the landscape. "The three of us aren't alone in this forest."

"What, he's being hunted then? By something other than us?"

One moment I was feeling entirely normal, observing the Andrusian blood, and the next, I feel as though I can't breathe.

"It seems so," the Doctor says, a frown turning his lips, "We have to hurry."

I try to gasp, to make a noise to get him to notice, but he just begins to walk forward. I stumble after him and grab his shoulder desperately, clutching at my throat with my other hand.

I know from almost drowning in my grandpa's pool ages ago that not being able to make sound is a very bad sign.

He acts very quickly, grabbing me and lowering me to the ground, and suddenly his lips are on mine. I feel a sharp pain in my lungs as he fills them with his breath.

Just like that, I can breathe again. I gasp and choke and hack, my chest heaving with the stress of the whole thing.

"Are you okay?" He murmurs, and I realize he is holding me against him.

"I… I'm fine now, yes. Thank you, you saved my life," I say in wonder, looking up at him, and he just smiles.

"You see, the gas acts as a thickening agent for the mucus that surrounds the organs of your lungs-"

"Alveoli."

"Yes, and it causes them to stick together so perfectly, that the lungs can't function. We've loosened the mucus but we need to hurry. Can you run?"

I nod. "Absolutely, let's go."

"Allons-y!" he exclaims, and yanks me up, and off we go.


	5. Jaxxilons and Justice

We follow the obvious trail of the Andrusian for what seems like at least half an hour, at a running pace, as fast as I can go. The Doctor could obviously leave me in the dust, but he doesn't. It's very good that I chose the outfit I did when I left my dorm. What luck.

Suddenly the Doctor grabs me around the waist and drags me with him behind a large tree. I quiet my breathing, and listen. I hear a deep growling sound, and a lot of loud clicking sounds.

Then something speaks.

"Where is it, worthless roach? Tell us where you've hidden it, or we'll be forced to take destructive action," a deep, rumbling voice says, and the clicking gets louder.

"I'm not a thief, and I don't have your polarity regulator, I swear to Mandunhala!"

"The Andrusian?" I whisper, and the Doctor nods. I stare at him questioningly, and he just puts one long finger to his lips and lets me go. He steps out from behind the tree.

"Please, gentlemen, can't we just settle this disagreement in a civil way? Killing one another won't solve anything, now will it?" he says, and I hear weapons being cocked.

"Stay out of this, pathetic human. This is no business of yours!" the deep voice grumbles, and a chorus of agreeing grumbles join in. I peek my head around the trunk, and what I see causes me to hold my breath. A big mistake, although understandable. When you see four rhino-men holding large bazooka type laser guns, it's a completely natural reaction. But immediately, my lungs seize up, and pain shoots all through my chest. I lean against the tree, and slide down it, trying my best to force air into my lungs to loosen the thickened gluey mucus. But as hard as I try, it doesn't work.

"See, now, you've accused him of stealing from you then? This meek Andrusian?" The Doctor says, and the lead Rhino advances towards him.

"Who is this human who feels so bold as to intervene on intergalactic matters?" It growls, towering over even the Doctor.

"I am the Doctor." He says simply, and immediately the Rhinos lower their weapons, and back up.

"A Time Lord? Here?" it says, almost grudgingly.

"Serve justice as you will, Time Lord," one of the Rhino-guys say.

I claw my way back to a standing position and even though I am starting to see spots, I make my way over to the Doctor. The Andrusian sees me first.

"Um… Lord Time Lord sir, there's a… uh…." He says, clicking a bit.

"What's that?" he says, still not turning around. More spots cloud my vision and I fall with a thud, making the Doctor realize what the Andrusian was trying to say. He runs to me, sliding to a stop next to me on the ground. I clutch at him, not seeing his face anymore.

"Andrusian," he shouts, and presses his lips to mine again, blowing air into my stagnant lungs. They don't budge, "You've done this to my friend, Evelyn."

"I did no such thing! I'm not a thief and I have nothing to do with that!" I faintly hear him squeak, through the rushing blood in my ears.

"She startled you," He blows air .

"Last night," Again, more air.

"And your organic gas is killing her!"

"I… I didn't know, I didn't mean to! Please, Lord Time Lord, sir, I didn't mean to! Honest!"

A ringing fills my ears, and I can't see anything anymore. Not a single thing.

_Blackness and nothingness._

Until my entire body erupts in pain and I feel my lungs being ripped apart by air entering them. I suck air into my lungs in huge gulps, and then let out a shout of agony. Slowly, but surely, my sight returns in spots, just as it left, and my hearing becomes normal after a long while. I can feel the Doctor's arms around me again, and I hear him urging me to get up.

"You need to move, keep moving, don't stop," he says urgently, giving me a shake, getting me to stand up. I try to obey him, and do my best to jog in place. But my knees keep giving out, and he has to keep helping me up.

All of the Aliens are arguing now, about a polarity something-or-other, and compensation, and justice. An awfully human conversation if you ask me.

I don't quite follow what happens, as I'm in and out of full consciousness, but I hear something about my flashlight, and then we are running. Well, by we, I mean the Andrusian and the Doctor. I'm mostly being dragged like an old dog on a leash during a marathon. By the time we stop, I am pretty much out of it. I hear snippets of their conversation, and I feel the cold, hard hands of the Andrusian on me whenever I try to stop moving.

Finally, I am urged to sit down, and given something to wear on my face. A vaporizer, I think. A hot, steam-like gas flows into the mask I'm wearing and the second I breathe it, I feel one hundred times better. I breathe it for what must have been five minutes or so, and then it is removed. I open my eyes, and they focus on a concerned Doctor. I smirk weakly at him, and he breaks out into a giant smile, laughing like a mad man. The Andrusian looks extremely relieved. Apparently there is something about a Time Lord that makes him quite a force to be reckoned with.

"Evy, is it okay if I take your flashlight?" The Doctor asks, and for some reason I find this to be very funny. I laugh and laugh and laugh, then lay down on the couch I had been sitting on.

"Of course you can, you can have my life savings after this if you want!" I breathe, laughing again.

He just shakes his head grinning, and goes to get the flashlight. He unscrews the battery compartment, and shakes it over his hand. A round gold and black disk falls out, and he raises it up to the orange and white light.

"Ah ha! So, here you are. Give this back to the Jaxxilons and they will leave you alone. As for feeding your family, I'm not sure what I can do to help you… I'm sorry you were driven to this." The Doctor says, handing the disk to the Andrusian, and patting its hardened thorax. It nods, takes the disk, and hangs its head, leaving the T.A.R.D.I.S.

The Doctor sits beside me on the couch, and I close my eyes and smile, slowly feeling more and more normal. I can feel the oxygen rushing through me, making me feel like I'm floating.

"How about that for a full day?" I say, and he laughs, taking one of my hands in both of his.

"I told you I wouldn't let you be harmed," He says triumphantly.

I pause, not sure if I should break his Time Lord hearts by pointing out that I nearly died twice in one hour.

"Well, I am alive and breathing, so I guess that counts!" I say enthusiastically, "But Doctor, what will happen to those creatures? And why were they here?"

"From what I gather, the Andrusian, one down on his luck and needing to find some Gurts to feed his family-"

"Gurts…" I say. I feel as though it may always be like this, me having to interrupt, remind him that I'm not from… wherever he's from, and that I know absolutely nothing that doesn't have to do with Earth in some way.

"Andrusia's currency. So when he saw the opportunity to jack the polarity stabilizer off of a Jaxxilon ship" he pauses, as if realizing I would have no clue what most of that meant, "The big, grey, wrinkly guys' ship, he took it. Those would fetch a pretty Gurt in the underground markets. But they must have caught on to him, and followed him here when he tried to escape."

I curl up, feeling a bit cold suddenly.

"It doesn't sound so different from something that might happen here. Hungry families, desperation…" I say softly, and the Doctor looks down at his hands, now folded in his lap.

"There has to be a down for there to be an up, in every culture," he replies, "I'll leave you to rest a bit. Then we'll talk about tomorrow!"

He stands up, his boisterous energy returned once again.

_Tomorrow? What about classes? What exactly am I even doing?_


	6. Leaving Miserable Behind

After I'm completely oxygenated and back to normal, I begin to feel the day catching up to me.

_What I wouldn't give for those amazing orange sheets! _

The Doctor is at his desk, fiddling with some kind of oddly shaped rod with a blue light on the end.

"What's that?" I ask, coming to stand behind him.

"It's my sonic screwdriver, my partner in crime, my old faithful!" He says, handing it to me with a proud look. "I'm tuning her up, keeping her top notch."

"A sonic screwdriver… Well what does it do?" I say, holding it in my hands, turning it over. It has a multitude of little buttons all over it. Just like the console, it seems incredibly complicated.

"Most things. There are 3051 settings on that baby." He says, and I hand it back to him, my eyebrows raised in surprise.

"That little guy can do 3051 different things? Like a spacey Swiss Army Knife?"

"Yeah I suppose. And it can do more than that, if you're a bit creative with it!"

I nod appreciatively, wrapping my arms across my chest. I suddenly realize that I'm a little rank.

_I need a shower… like now._

"Doctor, does the T.A.R.D.I.S maybe… does she have some kind of, bathroom or shower?"

The Doctor laughs, "Of course she does, I'm not some inorganically animated organism! You just walk into the console room, turn right back on your heel, and come back in here. She'll switch the rooms for you."

"Alright, back in a tick then!" I say, relieved beyond belief. I practically jog out of the sitting room into the console room, then turn right back around. When I walk back through the doorway, the Doctor is gone. The sitting room is gone, too. In its place is the biggest bathroom I have ever seen. So odd, though, because it's so very empty for being so huge. In the center of the giant circular room is a sort of large tube, made of distorted glass, or plastic, or whatever compound Time Lords use to make their showers. On the left side of the room is a very ordinary, out of place bathroom stall with a very non-ordinary sink next to it. It's orange, and has several faucet type attachments above it.

_I hope I can figure out how to work all of this…_

Immediately next to the shower tube is a pile of folded cloth, towels I'm assuming. They're orange, as well, and before I can even begin to hope, I rush to them and run my hands over them.

_Yes! They're the same silky fabric from the sheets! I am loving this place, gotta admit._

I strip my clothes off and practically leap through the tube's door. I am so incredibly thankful for the simple lever I see in front of me, one direction green and the other purple.

_Wait, green and purple? Which is hot?_

I throw caution to the wind, and turn it all the way green. Water pours down from straight above, like a very hard rain. I laugh, adjusting the lever until it's just right.

_So green is hot, purple is cold then. Got it._

Just as I begin to wonder how I'll be washing my hair and such, a beeping noise sounds, and the consistency of the water changes, thickens just a bit. A pleasant scent washes over me, then it turns back to water, and that's all there is to it. The lever turns itself off, and I run my fingers through my hair and over my skin. Clean as clean can be. Total of three minutes.

_Simply brilliant. Amazing._

I step out and grab one of the orange towels, reveling in the delightful material. It absorbs most of the water right off of me. I wrap it around myself, grab my clothes, and begin to walk out.

_Wait, Evy. These are your only clothes… too rank to wear again, that's for sure. Maybe he has some lady Time Lord clothes stashed away somewhere? You could borrow a suit!_

I hesitate, wondering how I should do this.

_It's only awkward if you make it awkward._

So I march out and back into the room, and the Doctor is still sitting there, tinkering with his sonic screwdriver.

"All clean then?" He asks, not looking up from his work.

"Well, yeah," I say, wrapping the towel tighter around me, "But I kind of need some…"

He looks up after I drift off, and clears his throat.

"Oh, right. Yes. Of course. How rude of me, where's home? We can get you some clothes and such and be off again."

"It's University of the Cumberlands, in Kentucky…" I say, following him as he walks past me into the console room.

"Good, hold on to your towel!" He says as he does his thing, and the room flips again. I tumble down and about, not daring to let go of my towel to hold on to anything else. When we stop, he opens the door and I see that it is nighttime again. I've been with him for nearly a full twenty-four hours.

_What am I doing?_

When I step out, barefoot and shivering cold, I see that we've landed right in front of my dorm hall. This might be fun to explain to the extremely Christian and conservative R.A.'s.

I tell the Doctor to stay in the T.A.R.D.I.S, since having to explain why I am walking into the dorm, naked, with only a towel, with a strange man as my only escort, might be a little difficult. The R.A.'s strangely didn't say much, besides asking if I was okay. Fine by me, the fewer questions the better. I probably wouldn't even be able to answer half of them!

I pack a bag full of clothes. Cute clothes, comfy clothes, functional clothes, you name it. I pack another full of things like my toothbrush and my glasses, and such. Then I stop suddenly.

_You can't keep avoiding the question. What are you doing? Are you completely insane, preparing to run around the universe with some stranger you've only just met a day ago? _

Preparing to run around the universe.

And that answers it all for me.

_No more misery. I am refusing to live this stagnant life I used to call my own. I'm not insane for agreeing to run around the universe, I'd be insane if I let this chance go!_

I finish packing, leave a quick note for my roommate, and slip out through the back door like I did the other night. I burst through the T.A.R.D.I.S door, ignoring the strange looks I get from passerby's. The Doctor smiles such a bright smile, you'd think I'd just made him the happiest person alive by coming through those doors.

"I thought maybe you'd not come back," he says, taking a bag from my shoulder, and leading me to the other room. It's the bedroom, the one I woke up in the other day. The same orange sheets, same pulsing orange and white lights, same long desk more full of contraptions than before. Is this his room, though? An irrational shot of fear runs through me.

_Does he expect me to stay in the same room, the same bed as him?_

I pause a moment, looking around uneasily, unsure if I'm okay with this.

"Well come on then, keep going it's just through here. Wonder what the T.A.R.D.I.S has done with it." He says, and out of the blue, I notice another doorway. He leads me through it and I see that it's another bed room. This one has a nearly identical bed, with the same orange sheets, and a long desk at the other end, empty except a notebook and some pens. The only real difference though is the lights. They pulse a lovely shade of green, and white as well.

"Very nice," The Doctor says, setting my bag down on the bed, "Well, how do you like it? Does it suit you well enough?"

"It's perfect, thank you Doctor," I say, adjusting my towel and running a hand through my wet hair.

"I'll leave you to it!" He says, clapping his hands once and turning to leave.

"Wait Doctor," I say, and he turns to look back at me in the doorway, "You said you thought I might not come back. But there was no chance I was going to pass this up. If it's a travelling companion you want, it's a travelling companion you've got. There's nothing I'd love more in the world- no, the universe."

He just smiles a bit and nods before leaving. When I blink, the door way is gone. I assume that's the alien version of shutting a door, making it disappear entirely.

_Bit unsettling… That's gonna take some getting used to._


	7. Breakfast With The Doctor

I change into some comfortable clothes and brush my hair, which by this time is nearly dry, already curling madly.

"Wish I had a mirror…" I mutter under my breath, and when I turn to put my brush away, above the desk is a mirror. A gilded mirror, lined with what looks like aged gold. I begin to laugh, enthralled with it all. My reflection shows me to be nearly glowing, but no alien technology has caused this. It's just the glow of adventure shining all around me, the thrill of newness and discovery.

"Well thank you much, Miss T.A.R.D.I.S!" I say, and then I bite my lip in excitement, and squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, the doorway has reappeared. I let out a little squeal of amazement, and make my way to it. In the next room, his room, The Doctor is at his desk, reading some sort of gigantic encyclopedia. I can't resist just observing him, just for a second. I lean on the doorframe, and watch as he turns a few pages quickly, obviously looking for something specific. Then he starts humming a tune, a very melancholy tune. A wordless lament. It brings a frown to my face, makes me feel regret and sadness, so much so that I can't take it anymore.

"So Doctor, how long do these trips normally last?" I ask, struggling to clear the tightness from my throat. He seems so extremely happy, yet equally as sad at the very same time. It breaks my heart, shatters it like paper-thin glass falling onto concrete.

He looks up from his book, shutting it with a snap.

"Well, however long you want! But I need to tell you…" He gets up from his desk, removes his glasses, and shoves his hands into his pockets.

_Aliens wear glasses…_

"It's always dangerous. What happened today, that was nothing. That was mild, Evy. That was highly manageable," he says.

I shrug my shoulders and flop onto his bed, with the same delightfully cool orange sheets as mine.

"Well, I hope the trips never end." I say with a smile. His eyebrows furrow and he comes to sit on the bed next to me.

"Evy, I have… I've lost people before." He says with a look that is so fragile, so clearly pained that I can't resist sitting up to hug him. He freezes for a moment before hugging me back, gently, lightly, as if he's afraid to crack me. I pull back to look him in the eyes, those bright gold, sad eyes.

"I am truly sorry for that Doctor. Something tells me you did your best to save them, but it…" My voice cracks, and I decide to change the subject. "Look… My life, all my life I've dreamed of travelling, of cutting my ties to my tired world, my boring old world, and just getting up and doing it. Sometimes, I'd get close to what I craved, what my very soul needed. I'd spontaneously travel somewhere new, explore it, learn it all. But then, at the end of the day, you end up back in the same place you started. If it's dangerous, if I lose my life, it will all have been worth it. It will have been exactly what I wanted from life, right up until it ends."

I stand up, bringing him with me. He is staring at me as if I were saying something terrifying and inspiring at the same exact time.

"I'm not wired to sit still, I'm not wired to be where I have always been. I'm depressed, Doctor. I'm desperate for that certain something, that freedom, ah! Glorious freedom…"

He is silent for a long while, then brings his hand up to my face, tilting it this way and that, looking into my eyes.

"Are you sure you are and always have been human?" He says, a sad little smile on his lips.

"Not at all." I reply, laughing, and he bursts with that happy energy of his very suddenly.

"Right, then! Go on, get some sleep, who knows what we'll be doing tomorrow," he says.

* * *

_A man, laying still on the ground. Completely still. No one is around him, yet everyone is. He carries them with him, carries them on his back, in his soul, a perpetual burden and blessing._

_Suddenly the man opens his mouth and omits light, brilliant light. Then his entire body glows with that same iridescent gold light. He is ethereal for the slightest moment, every bit the angel he doesn't see himself to be. _

_Suddenly, he is no more. _

_No, simply changed. He is still himself, yet wears the face of another. _

_One more breath of light, and his eyes open; bright gold, sad eyes._

I jerk awake, my body convulsing oddly for a moment, and find myself snuggled in a nest of orange silkiness. I sigh, feeling a migraine wrack my mind once again. I lay still for a few more minutes, waiting until my heart beat has calmed.

_My strange dream caused a strange reaction, indeed._

I throw the sheets back and get dressed for the day. Jeans, boots, and my favorite black leather jacket. Fashionable and functional, if it comes down to it! I braid my bangs back, seeing as they're absolutely hopeless, and fluff my dark curls a little. I forego makeup, simply because adventure doesn't call for it, and then head towards the doorway into the Doctor's room. He isn't in it, so I look in the console room. Nothing. I sit on the ground for a bit, waiting.

_Probably in the bathroom, or something. _

But when I look around, I see that another doorway has opened up, and the smell wafting out of it is… toe-curling pleasurable. I get up and peek my head into the door, only to get a gigantic flame in the face. I leap back with a yelp, checking my hair and face for burns.

"Oh god, sorry! It's been a while since I've had anyone else around when I'm cooking! The process is a bit of a calamity, but just you wait until you taste the end product!"

The Doctor is running back and forth in what I assume to be the kitchen. It contains huge fiery machines, ones that don't look like cooking instruments at all to me, and a table, with simple orange chairs.

_So he does have a table._

"It's alright! No harm no foul, and plus, it smells heavenly!" I say, rushing to get out of his way, practically leaping into a chair at the table. "What's for breakfast, captain?"

"We've got the normal type of stuff, shaken and stirred Jubjub eggs flame broiled over Pithril bread, with orange juice to drink! The eggs are almost done," he huffs as he turns knobs on a machine, and the fire flares again, enveloping a big metal pot. He sets a plate in front of me, with a brown bread on it, crispy looking, a bit flaky. Mostly normal so far. Then he puts on orange mitts, and reaches into the metal pot, taking out a gigantic purple spotted egg.

"Here we go, nice and fresh," he says with a grin as he carefully walks it over to me, then cracks it in half, right above my plate. A dull purple, lumpy concoction slides out and onto the bread. He must notice my horrified expression because he makes a disapproving tsk-tsk sound.

"Oh, c'mon, don't knock it til' you've tried it! Go on, take a bite!"

He watches intently as I grab a fork and use it to pick up some of the whatchamacallit egg.

"No, no no no no! You have to get some of the bread with it, otherwise it's bloody awful! It's a Gallifrey classic, this breakfast. An absolute essential!" He exclaims, and goes to get another egg from the pot, cracking it over his own plate, and sitting across from me.

I grimace, and decide to stall for time.

"Gallifrey? Is that your home planet?" I ask, watching as he nods, then immediately digs in. A look of pure delight washes over his face, making me curious.

I cut a piece of the bread and, making sure I get some of the admittedly delightful-smelling purple lumps, pop it into my mouth. It's a wonderful combination of extreme salt and extreme sweet, creating the most amazing dance across my tastebuds. A low moan escapes my mouth, much to my embarrassment. The Doctor just laughs, shoveling more into his mouth. I follow suit, and it ends up being a rather quiet breakfast. No room to talk in a mouth that wants to be full!

Once we are both done, and have downed our orange juice, we both sigh in contentment.

"That meal will actually last us a total of five days. You just won't be hungry, all of the fats and proteins in the eggs and the carbohydrates from the bread will keep you going just fine. Long lasting energy, that's what I call a real breakfast," the Doctor says proudly and I smile at his simple happiness.

"You're a rather inspired chef, you know?" I say, and he shrugs, faking modesty.

"Well, I've had some practice," he says, then stands up suddenly, "How's the head today, eh Evy?"

I rub my temples, hoping the pressure will relieve the migraine, knowing it won't.

"Not so well," I reply and he claps his hands.

"Brilliant. Well, not brilliant, but brilliant so that we can- the brain scan!" He says enthusiastically, and when he strides into the console room, I follow him, hesitantly leaving the dishes behind.

He stands in front of the console, and I expect him to start pressing buttons and banging levers with his clunky hammer, but he doesn't. He gestures for me to come closer.

"So how does this work, then?" I ask, standing directly in front of him, yet he gestures for me to come closer still.

"I'm going to open a door to your mind. I want you to imagine your memories to have doors on them, doors that you can control. If there's anything you don't want me to see, just shut the door, and I won't go in." He explains, suddenly very serious.

"So like telepathy?" I ask, stepping so close that I can feel his breath on my face. It smells pleasant, like how the sweet Pithril bread tasted.

"Kind of. Just relax, focus on the migraine's location in your skull, it'll make it easier for me to find it."

He places two of his fingers on each of my temples, and suddenly I feel an unfamiliar coolness in my brain. I jerk a little in surprise.

"Shh, it's alright, it's just me." I hear in my mind, and I try to do all that he's told me. I shut my memories with little green doors, and I can feel him walking past them all, towards the center of my pain.

He reaches it, and I feel him circling around it, hear whispers of explanations in my head. I can make out one word only: Tumor.


	8. A Series of Anomalies

Panic swirls through my mind, and I lose control of my door mechanism. They start flying open, one by one. He must be getting absolutely bombarded by memories. I hear only two words. _So lonely._ I feel him withdraw slowly, carefully, but suddenly he stops. One little green door in particular has caught his attention, a dream. The dream I had last night. He must be examining it thoroughly, which is embarrassing, since I am already dreaming about him, and now he knows. All of the sudden he withdraws very quickly, and his absence burns like cool fire for a while.

When I open my eyes, I am kneeling on the ground, and the Doctor is kneeling in front of me. We are both breathing a bit heavily, and my migraine is worse than it had been before. I groan from the dull, throbbing pain. The Doctor is staring at me, and when I look up, I can't tell what his expression means. Confusion, horror, frustration? Perhaps all three.

"You witnessed my last regeneration process." He says quickly, "You saw it happen, how is that possible?"

"Your what?" I ask, my nerves feeling like they're grating across gravel.

"My regeneration, when my last form died. You saw me regenerate. The energy, that bright light, I became another man, sound familiar in any way?" He demands, leaning closer, his eyes wild.

"Died? Doctor, it was a dream. Just a dream I had last night, nothing to get upset over." I say, pressing my palms against the sides of my head.

"No, no, no you're not understanding. Your dream, it wasn't just normal R.E.M brain activity, you saw the past. You saw my most recent death and regeneration. Time Lords, we regenerate when we die, that is we recycle our energy to continue on. Dreams are important, never underestimate dreams!"

I fumble over my words for a few moments, unable to say anything intelligible.

"Well then, what… how old are you, exactly? You can live after dying, multiple deaths, so that makes you…"

"903 years old," he says, continuing on as if that were no big deal, "But this shouldn't be possible. These things you are doing, shouldn't be possible. The tumor in your brain, its cells were simply radiating with energy, but I'm not sure what kind. Maybe if we do some-"

"Excuse me… but… COULD YOU EXPLAIN A LITTLE SOMETHING TO ME?" I shout, throwing my arms up in exasperation. My migraine is positively throbbing at this point.

He just tilts his head, his eyes wide, watching me carefully.

"Okay so you're 903 years old, at this point I'm not that surprised. But you have just told me I have a tumor, in my brain, so pardon me if I seem a little alarmed, but doesn't that usually bode unwell for people? Having tumors?-"

"Evy, look-"

"I mean, I'm only 21 years old, for Christ sake! I finally got to travel, I finally got the damn freedom I need, and I'm dying? How-"

"Evy, I think-"

"-is that even freakin' fair, hmm? So explain to me Doctor, how the bloody hell are we going to get rid of this thing? You're an alien from an exotic planet with special high-tech showers and such, surely you have a solution to-"

"Evy, your hands are on fire!"

I look down, and to my horror, he's not joking. Flame has enveloped my hands and is spreading up my arms. My migraine is like knives in my brain at this point. Panic causes me to jerk to my feet and thrash about.

"It's not going out! What do I do?" I scream, doing my best to keep it away from my hair. Funny how it's a lady's first concern even when she's burning alive.

Actually, I'm not burning.

I don't feel the fire at all. Not even the heat of it.

I stop thrashing and really take a look at it.

"Doctor, take another brain scan. I promise I won't freak out this time. Just do it." I say, walking towards him.

"Keep the hands to yourself," he says, and presses his fingers to my temples. Once again I am seeing my little green doors, feeling the slow coolness of his own mind in mine. He circles the tumor again, taking much more time than before. He withdraws slowly and gently, and then immediately begins pacing, talking to himself so quickly I can't understand him.

I look down at my hands, and realize the fire follows the pulse of my blood, and thus, my migraine. It's like it's a part of me, this fire.

"Intriguing." I say, turning my hands over, examining my fire. I breathe in and the fire gets a bit bigger, I breathe out and it dims. I close my eyes, feeling my migraine begin to subside with every deep breath I take. When I look down at my hands again, the fire is out. Just… gone.

"Doctor, that was…" I begin, but find myself unable to continue, as a wave of breathlessness and vertigo hits me. I drop to my knees on the grated floor of the console room and the Doctor's full attention is suddenly on me. He rushes to me, taking a quick pulse and tapping my cheeks as my vision starts to go.

"Not again, Evy! You keep passing out on me, you just wait and see. You'll wake up with a drawn-on mustache one of these days." He growls, and suddenly he digs the tips of his fingers into my breastplate. I scream out in pain, but it brings me back, that's to be sure.

"You good?" he asks, holding me up in a sitting position. I growl in frustration and nod quickly.

"Migraine's gone," I breathe out, blinking rapidly as I try to get my center of gravity back, "So what's my diagnosis Doctor?"

He pulls out his glasses from his pocket and puts them on, then stands up and starts pacing.

"It's definitely a tumor, not sure if the tumor itself is lethal, but the energy contained in its cells might be if unleashed in a large enough dose. Somehow, you are containing and projecting nuclear energy. You're splitting the cancer cells' atoms as they form, building up energy, containing it, causing your migraines to get worse as you don't expend the energy. But, when you're ready, you use it to manipulate matter."

He pauses to look very pleased with himself. "HA! Got it."

"So I'm containing nuclear energy? How does it not explode in my brain the second the atoms split?"

"Not sure, some anomaly of the brain cell membranes. I'd need time and testing to figure that out."

"So, I have control over how I expend the energy, though? I'm not going to lose control of the heap of nuclear energy in my brain, right?"

"It would seem so, though if I were you, I'd lay low until you absolutely need to use it, we don't know the side-effects of containing and releasing nuclear fission energy from the brain," The Doctor laughs loudly, yanking me up from the ground and twirling me about, "Discovery at its finest, Evy!"

"I guess, but I want it gone!" I say, and he looks at me as if I were speaking of genocide.

"You aren't even curious? Little scientist such as yourself? You just want to cut it out, be rid of it?" he asks, those big gold eyes turning puppy dog.

"I want to live. I want to be sure that I will live. Can you get rid of it? Use your alien brain timey-wimey powers to make it so it never happened? Anything?" I ask, and he shakes his head slowly.

"Even if I could, which I can't, and even if I would, which I wouldn't, I couldn't." He replies, adjusting his coat with a firm tug.

"So you can't or you won't?" I ask, glowering at him. He just shrugs.

"Both. I can't go back to where the tumor formed, because the particular spot in the time vortex around this little tumor is fixed. No matter how you tamper with the past, this will always be your future. It's important, you're important, as you are right at this moment…" his eyes get distant, thoughtful, and for a moment it's as if I'm not even standing in front of him. Eyes still unfocused, he says, "and I can't just cut it out of you, so don't try that one. That little bit of brain it's sitting on happens to be your temporal lobe. Remove it, and you'll forget who you are, everything about you, and every memory, both pleasant and painful, that you've ever had."

I ponder that for a moment.

_Would it be so terrible to have that happen?_

I recoil mentally, in horror of my own apathy.

"Evy?" he says, and I realize I haven't moved or said anything in a noticeable amount of time.

"Alright. Then I'll just have to learn how to control it," I murmur.

"That's the spirit! I know just the place, too!" he says, working the console like the madman he is.


	9. Amazonia

We end up in a jungle.

"I've always wanted to go to the Amazon!" I exclaim after stepping out of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Amazonia, actually. A human-made planetoid body, bigger than your moon. Entirely artificial, the atmosphere, the soil, all of it." He says, knocking on a gigantic tree's trunk as if he expects it to be hollow and plastic. "Not a single organism on this planet is humanoid."

"What, no one lives here then? Just animals?" I say, the magnitude of my delight leaping upwards with every second.

_ A forest with no humans to destroy it. Simply beautiful._

Yet, the logic doesn't make sense. Usually, humans build with a purpose. What purpose does a pretty, wild forest planet have for the human race?

"Why did they create it? How far in the future are we, anyway?" I ask, feeling the noise of curiosity clash in my brain. The Doctor seems to hear it, too, and he smiles a bit sadly.

"The Earth started to run out of oxygen, about a thousand years ago. Immediately, they built this planet. With all of the vegetation they planted, they could use giant transporter ships to take the oxygen back to Earth."

I scowl. "Prolonging the inevitable."

He says nothing, just begins walking, so I follow him.

"So, you brought me somewhere with no humanoids, so that I wouldn't… harm anyone on accident, right?" I ask, eyeing him, looking for something inexplicable. Some doubt of my safety, some idea that I was actually a danger.

"Well yeah! You're like a newborn whose been given power over the laws of physics. Plus, some peace and quiet wouldn't hurt, yeah?"

I raise an eyebrow, gesturing around us as the forest squawked and keened and howled and groaned.

"Okay, some primal inspiration, then!" He offers and I laugh, shaking my head.

We come to a clearing just then, with a cascading waterfall coming from high on the green cliffs. An enormous cave, made of slabs of rock that had fallen from the cliffs, sits about 20 yards from the waterfall. Vines twist up the cliffs and the cave both, with flowers blooming from them in all kinds of colors.

"And now we wait." I say, walking towards the waterfall pool, to see if any fish are in it.

"Nah, waiting is boring! You can wait when you're de-" He cuts himself off suddenly, and clears his throat. "What do you wanna' do then? Climb, swim, track down some creepy crawlies?" The Doctor says, his eyes alight like a child's.

_I wonder how long Time Lords live. What if he's just a teenager in their culture? A child, even? I wonder if they're all like this?_

_No way. That would be exhausting._

"How about you choose? Surprise me. Or don't. Your choice!" I say, staring in wonder at the colorful bouquet of fish decorating the clear pool. When I look up at him, he is grinning his cheekiest grin.

"We go up!" He shouts, and strides to a particularly jagged part of the cliff-face. Immediately he hoists himself up, his brown coat swaying in the muggy jungle breeze.

I break into a smile and bound after him, slipping in the mud a few times, not really caring. He's already halfway up by the time I start climbing. The rocks are sharp and cut my hands a bit, but it's a natural, comfortable kind of pain.

"Come on, slow poke! We've got things to see!" The Doctor calls, nearly to the top. I throw all of my energy into my climbing.

"You've asked for it now, you-"

"Evy, go BACK!" He suddenly shouts, and I look up to see him being yanked onto the flat top of the cliff. I can't see what's got him though, and my heart scurries into my throat.

"Doctor?" I shout, continuing to climb, glancing up every few heartbeats. "Doctor?!"

I finally reach the top, and I drag myself onto the flat ground, my eyes darting this way and that, searching for the familiar brown coat.

_He's just vanished. Gone._

"DOCTOR!" I scream, my voice echoing through the noisy jungle.

The flat top of the cliff is just a small river, leading to the waterfall, surrounded by dense, green jungle. Fear claws its way into my heart, and it seems to stop for a moment.

_The Doctor is a powerful guy with two hearts and technology at his disposal that far surpasses anything I even know how to work. He just got snatched by something. This does __**not**__ bode well._

A glint catches my eye, a few meters away from the riverbed. Something metallic. I numbly walk over to it, just staring at it as if it were a death sentence.

The sonic screwdriver.

Its blue top glitters in the light of this planet's star, mocking me, daring me to pick it up, to even try to use it.

_Okay, so he's a powerful guy with two hearts, but no technology at his disposal. Instead, I have it. Dull, clueless me._

Finally, I crouch down and pick it up, turning it over in my hands. Buttons line the entire circumference of the damn thing. 3051 settings, indeed. And no labels on a single button. Though, they are all a different shape, all meaning nothing to me at the moment.

I stand up, angrily shoving the instrument into my jeans pocket, and decide that I'd better get over my fear and insecurity and do something. Anything. This might be the only time the Doctor needs me to save him.

_And you best believe he's never going to hear the end of it._

I stare into the forest around the river, looking for any signs of which way I should start looking. I see no broken branches, no tracks in the mud, nothing. Which means the river is my best bet.

_You want to lose someone who's tracking you? Try nature's anonymous highway, H20._

I begin hopping and sloshing up the river, knowing that around any corner, my worst fears might come true. Who knows what monsters might have found this planet? I keep a look out for any exit tracks, any foliage that might be trampled. A few false leads later, I find something promising, but strange and rather terrifying. They're tracks, and they follow a wide path of crushed underbrush, but unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

It's as if someone had taken multiple wooden rods, all aligned in a circle, and jabbed them into the mud. Whatever it is, it left large round indentations in the ground, and whatever it is, it's tall, it's strange, probably terrifying, and it managed to snatch the Doctor.

Even though it's about as helpful to me as the next twig hanging off a tree, I pull out the sonic and clutch it tightly. Hopefully, whatever setting the Doctor had it on last is something like flamethrower, or missile launcher, or virtual chainsaw.

One of those would be nice. So very nice.


	10. No Flame-thrower Required

I follow the strange tracks carefully. I even take off my shoes, knowing that if I'm hunting something, the quieter the better. My feet squelch in the mud, but that's about all the sound I'm making. I force my breath to remain calm and low, knowing that both of our lives might hang in the balance here.

_I will find you, Doctor. You don't get to just take me on one adventure and then die. Nope. I refuse, I-_

My thoughts are sharply interrupted by an extremely unsettling noise, so unsettling that I practically leap behind the nearest tree. Muffled shouting, some kind of scurrying upon leaves, and something else I can't quite place. A noise so high pitched that I can hardly hear it. But it's there.

I wait a few moments before peeking out and looking around, my shoes and the sonic clutched to my chest. I see nothing in the forest. Just the typical green. I do notice that the number of odd, round tracks have increased exponentially, though. So much so that it's almost as if I've reached a place of frequency for whatever creature this is. A nest, if you will.

The scurrying again, more muffled shouting, only this time I can pinpoint it. My face crumples in fear, and I slowly lift my eyes to the canopy.

My mouth opens in a silent scream.

Web. There's spider web everywhere. Anywhere I look, there's spider web. And smack dab in the center of this nightmare, at least a hundred feet up, is a tall and lanky pod of web, squirming, shouting, struggling.

My terror gets the best of me, and my stealth is forgotten.

"Doctor?! Oh my God, Doctor, hold on!" I shout, looking around for a place to climb up, something to help get him down, but instead my eyes meet with a thousand others.

I scream louder than I've ever screamed in my entire life. My lungs struggle to keep up, my throat tries to contain the force of my terror.

_Oh for fuck's sake, anything but this!_

A gigantic spider, the height of a small house, is crouching down in front of me, its unblinking eyes reflecting my horrified image like little convex mirrors. Its legs are the thickness of my entire body, and they make round holes in the mud, like wooden poles nailed into the ground. Its body is green, covered in brown hairs the length on my own long hair.

Adrenaline immediately shoots through me, and I stumble back, landing on my butt with a plop in the mud. It observes me quietly, appraising its next meal, turning its head this way and that, and suddenly all of its eyes blink at once. I scream again, chucking one of my shoes at it.

The monster rears up a bit on its back four legs, blinking rapidly where my shoe hit its eyes. I take this as an opportunity to take a look at the sonic screwdriver.

"PLEASE BE FLAMETHROWER!" I screech, and press the biggest blue button on the side.

A little buzzing noise emits from the device. That's it. A cute little buzzing.

A string of curses leave my lips, and I prepare for the end, squeezing my eyes shut.

_What I wouldn't give for a migraine right about now._

Yet…

Nothing happens. The buzzing continues, but nothing else happens. I open my eyes to see the spider shaking its head, all of its eyes shut. The high pitched noise reaches my ears again, more distinct this time, and I realize it's a sound that the spider makes.

Whatever the sonic is doing, it's hurting the spider.

I scramble up, my finger never leaving that big blue button, and I take a bold step towards the beast. It recoils, trying to avoid whatever it is that the sonic screwdriver is doing.

That's when it hits me, and my mind begins to fly.

_Sonic. Duh._

It must be giving off sonic waves that are too intense for the heightened senses of the spider. Judging by the high pitch noise the spider communicates with, it must be attuned to much less intense frequencies. If I can just find a way to amplify the signal…

Still pointing it at the spider, I turn the sonic over, looking for a specific kind of module. Something that would allow an increase or decrease, a gradual slidey, a tiny lever, anything!

Finally, I find what I'm looking for, exactly at the perfect moment. The spider seems to get wise, figuring out that if it gets rid of me, it gets rid of the signal. It rushes at me, two dripping fangs emerging from its maw, just as my finger slides a wavy looking button up towards the blue top. The buzzing gets louder and seems to pulsate, irritating even my own ears. The spider begins to thrash about, knocking a tree down. I look up to see that the web has broken, and the Doctor's pod swings down a bit, knocking him against the side of a tree.

The spider suddenly whips around and scurries away, downing a few trees in its hurry to escape the sonic waves.

I continue to press the button, and still holding it all the while, start to climb up to where the Doctor hangs. His struggling has turned to a pathetic squirming, and worry clenches my stomach into knots.

"Doctor?" I say as I finally reach him, precariously perching myself on a slippery branch. I use my free hand to rip open the web, which happens to be incredibly strong, and thick. After quite a bit of struggling, I finally get his face free. He is drenched in sweat, and his skin looks sallow, a bit yellow even.

"Oh, that's no good," I breathe, steadying myself on the branch before I do anything.

_How the hell am I going to get him down without dropping him fifty feet?_

I glance around me, and notice a thick vine, winding its way up the girth of the tree. It's as thick as my wrist is wide, and is about my best bet at the time.

I yank it off the tree and tie a good strong knot around the Doctor's feet.

"I'm really sorry if this breaks your ankles, but I have to get you down." I say, and begin tugging at him as hard as I can without losing my balance. His pod of webbing yanks free after a while and begins to swing down, tightening suddenly about 5 or 6 feet from the forest floor. I wince and, still pressing the blue button, climb down to get him. The minute my bare feet hit the mud, I rush to him and begin to tear away at the web. It clings to him maddeningly, so I do the best I can, then begin to drag him with my free hand.

I've only just made it to the river by the time my muscles are screaming and my back is killing me.

"Doctor, can you hear me?" I say loudly, pausing in my haul back to the T.A.R.D.I.S to splash a bit of water on his gaunt face. I lift his eyelids to find his pupils are so small that his eye is nearly all gold iris. His gums are pale, and his odd four-beat pulse is racing.

"It bit you," I say grimly. "Well, don't you worry. I'm going to get you back to the T.A.R.D.I.S and she'll help me, won't she? She'll show me a room that can help you? Maybe I'll find an alien first aid kit, eh?"

I take a deep breath, brushing back his sweaty hair from his forehead. He doesn't stir.

"You're going to be fine." I grit out as I grab him again, and begin my trek again. The buzzing from the sonic keeps me going. Both a comfort, and a reminder of why this planet is not inhabited.

At last, I make it to the waterfall, but I am so exhausted that I can think of only one way down. I wade into the river, bringing the Doctor with me, doing my best to keep his head above the waterline.

That doesn't last long because before I know it, we are falling. It looks odd to me, how we are falling at the same rate as the water, and it shimmers all around us. Like crystal.

At least I'll have once nice thing to tell the Doctor when he wakes up.


	11. All in a Day's Work

I have never been happier to see a blue box in my life. The T.A.R.D.I.S looks like a shining beacon of hope sitting among the trees at this point, and I yank at the Doctor madly, allowing my cramping finger to stop pressing the blue button so I can get him into it quicker. I bump into the door, once, a few times, a few times more.

_Not opening, why not opening,_ my exhausted brain manages to work out.

Immediately, I rip open the Doctor's day suit, popping a few buttons off, and start rummaging in his pockets for the key he carries with him, and when I find it, I kiss it. Quickly, I open the door and shove the Doctor inside before slamming it behind me.

I fall to the floor of the console room, just catching my breath for a moment.

Then I spring into action.

"T.A.R.D.I.S, I don't know if this is how it works, but look, the Doctor, he's in real bad shape, and I need a way to help him. I don't know anything about his physiology or anything, but I'm guessing you do, so please! I need like… a medical kit, or a super awesome alien healing room, anything!" I shout, walking around the console, heading towards the doorway.

Inside is a room I have never seen before, full of cabinets.

"Thank you! I'll take it. I refuse to let him-" I growl, not even daring to finish the sentence.

I bound into the room, wrenching open the first cabinet I come to. Inside are tubes. Cartidges, really, full of different liquids, labeled with words I mostly don't understand. Mostly. I get neurotoxis, and I get bicardiac arrest. Those seem to pertain to the situation pretty well. So I snatch them up, along with a syringe that fits perfectly with the cartridges.

I sprint back to the console room, nearly falling next to the Doctor. My shaking fingers fumble with the syringe apparatus a few times, but finally I get it functional.

My hand hovers over the Doctor's stiff body, hesitating. But then, I bite my lip, and I plunge the syringe into his left heart, pressing down on the applicator. I repeat that for the bicardiac arrest cartridge, and then let it drop to the floor with a clank.

I watch him for about ten minutes with no change. He doesn't stir, and his vitals are the same. Weak.

Tears fill my eyes, and I lay down, sidling up next to the Doctor.

I just curl up into him, feeling more alone than I have ever felt in my entire, lonely life.

"That waterfall," I whisper, "I wish you could've seen it. I've never fallen down a waterfall before, strangely."

I laugh bitterly, sniffling and wiping some tears away.

"So, when I got over the 'oh crap I'm falling' phase of it, and looked around… The water was like diamond around us. I could see you next to me, I could feel your hand in mine still, and we were surrounded by liquid diamond, tinted green by the jungle around us."

I remain silent for a good ten minutes after that, my mind empty. Just… nothing.

"It was beautiful." I say finally. He just coughs in response.

**Coughs.**

I shoot up, only to dive back down and press my head against his chest. His hearts are thudding strongly now, and when I pull back his eyelid, the normally dilated eyeball actually focuses on me. I squeal in delight, wiping my eyes and hugging him tightly, and his arm actually tries to wrap around me.

I start laughing maniacally, unable to stop, so overjoyed that he is okay. Okay-ish, at least!

"Stay here, I'll get you a pillow, and- well, of course you're going to stay here, you're still a bit paralyzed aren't you? Oh this is fantastic!" I shout, and rush about collecting things to make him comfortable. I get a wet cloth to wipe his forehead down, cool him off a little, along with one of his pillows, too.

_This part, I can do. I got this. In fact, I got all of that pretty well, didn't I?_

_Oh man, he really is never going to hear the end of it._

* * *

"Water," is the first word the Doctor says when he begins to fully recover, so I fumble around the kitchen until I find a goblet to fill with water. It's a very intricate thing, not at all like the ones we drank out of earlier, and when I hand it to him he smirks a little.

"I don't know my way around the kitchen yet!" I defend myself, and help prop him up to drink. He takes a few swigs, then lays back down with a sigh.

"You look so much better," I say, relief flooding through me as I admit it out loud. He truly does. Almost normal.

"I feel like I've been processed by a Carygonish Rock-eater." He says, groaning, and I nod as if I know the exact feeling.

"Yeah? Could be worse though! You could be, I dunno… Giant spider chow, hanging a hundred feet above a jungle canopy, still infected by necrotic neurotoxic spider venom." I say, nudging him, and he grins his boyish grin at me.

"Without you, I would've been, yeah?" He shakes his head, and his gold eyes sparkle in the most infectious way. "You… You are fantastic. Absolutely brilliant."

I blush, shrugging.

"You know it goes both ways. C'mon, let's get you up and in bed."

I move to get his arm over me, but he shakes his head, getting up on his own.

"You've done enough already, Evy! You need to rest, too. I'm fine now."

I raise my brows and appraise him thoroughly. He does seem to be doing okay now.

_And I also feel like I've been processed by a whatchamacallit Rock-eater._

"Promise? I'm not going to find you passed out or dead anywhere anytime soon?" I demand, and he smiles.

"Promise. On my honor!" He makes an odd loopy gesture over the left and right side of his chest, and I'm guessing that's Time Lord for 'Scout's Honor'.

"Alright, then. I'm holding it to you." I say, and we walk to the changing doorway where our rooms lay. We bid each other good night, and it's only when the doorway disappears that I feel the weight of my own body.

_Jeez, every muscle cell in my body must be rebelling. Feels like a revolution in here._

I rub my arms, feeling the lactic acid burning.

_It's definitely time for another shower, that's for sure_.

I move in front of my gilded mirror, and see my bedraggled appearance. Twigs and thick spider web are caught in my braid, and I am covered, I mean _covered _in mud. Smeared on my face, my clothes, my everything.

_Yeah. Space shower time._

I head towards the doorway, which is now open, and find that the Doctor is not in his room. I begin to worry, until I get to the bathroom. Worry quickly turns to embarrassment.

I walk through the doorway into the enormous bathroom just as the Doctor is stepping out of the glass tube. Naked. No suit, no brown coat. And very human in appearance, if you know what I mean. I stare for a millisecond too long, yet he doesn't even move to cover up. He just stares back at me, with an eyebrow raised. I can feel the blood rush to my face so quickly that I almost feel faint.

"OH my God, I'm so sorry, I'll just-" I nearly shout, and turn on my heel and practically run back through the doorway.

I can just hear the T.A.R.D.I.S beeping and booping in amusement.

I stand awkwardly in the console room, knowing that going to my room would only leave me trapped in my own, with a battlefield of awkward to fight through, or in other words, the Doctor's room.

He comes out wrapped in one of those orange towels, and just gives a casual nod as he gimps into his bedroom. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and give him a smile that I'm sure is much too wide and much too awkward, and then rush into the bathroom.

I turn around and the doorway has disappeared.

_Thanks a lot T.A.R.D.I.S. Now you know how to close doors. Sure. Okay._

I let out my braid, running my fingers through my grubby, twig and web filled hair, and then strip off my disgusting clothes, starting to sing an old song I heard from a movie. It's got this swinging, languid, simple melody that I love, my favorite song to sing. I can almost hear the piano accompanying me as I step into the glass tube.

The hot water feels good on the tangled knot I call my body at the moment, and singing is calming me, as it always does. The shower ends way too soon, so I start it up again, and again, singing the song over.

Finally I decide it's time to get out, meaning I am so exhausted I can't even sing anymore. I step out, and immediately notice that the doorway is open.

"Seriously," I mutter under my breath. This is some sick joke the T.A.R.D.I.S is playing on me, I'm sure. I can hear the beeping from the console room, and it taunts me to no end. I wrap up in a towel and snatch up my dirty clothes and head for the doorway.

I nearly jump out of my skin to find the Doctor sitting next to the doorway in the console room. He's wearing red pajamas, ones that seem to be made of the same material as the orange towel I have wrapped around me. He looks at me, standing up immediately if not a bit unsteadily, and clears his throat.

"You have a very sweet singing voice. I heard you from my room." He says quickly, and I smile, trying not to let the blush I feel in my stomach reach my cheeks. "Reminds me of… It's very lovely, brilliant."

_Reminds you of… What, you mysterious spaceman?!_

"Oh thank you! I'm sorry about earlier, I didn't know…. I wouldn't have…" I trail off, wishing I could just drop dead for a bit until this awkwardness is over.

He chuckles, and tilts his head, like a puppy who has been confused.

"I wasn't bothered by it," He says enigmatically.

"Well I'm glad, and I'm also glad you enjoyed my shower singing, but you really should rest, you know? I'm sure even a great Lord of Time needs his rest after being assaulted by a gigantic spider, hmm? I didn't save your life just to have you die on your feet!" I say, tucking a strand of wet hair behind my ear. He watches the motion, and then nods, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going." He says, like a child being punished by being sent to bed. I laugh, and follow him. He flops on his bed, hands behind his head, and I make my way towards my room, my feet making smacking sounds on the solid ground of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Evy?" I hear him say, and turn to look at him over my shoulder.

"Doctor?"

"Thank you. I truly mean it. You see, I can cheat death as a Time Lord, but it still feels like dying. I wasn't ready to go. I have a feeling I won't be ready for a very long time, as well. So thank you. You're absolutely flawless."

"Go on…" I say, grinning cheekily at him, and we laugh.

"Goodnight, Doctor. I'm happy to say I'll see you in the morning." I say, and throw one last smile at him before turning in for the night.


	12. Death of a Time Lord

_The Doctor stumbles a bit, falling to a snow covered ground. His face looks strained, as if it is breaking, panic in his gold eyes. A song stains the air, and immediately it brings tears to my eyes._

_Vale decem._

**_Farewell, Ten._**

_He curls around himself, in a protective little ball. I'd never seen him look so fragile._

_Ad aeternum._

**_On, into eternity._**

_He rolls over suddenly to face the sky, tears spilling out of his eyes._

_Vale decem._

**_Farewell, Ten._**

_He stares at the sky, the snow, the stars, seeing everything and nothing. I know he is feeling those ghosts, the ones he carries with him, the ones who never leave. The ones who break his hearts._

_Beati, pacifici._

**_Blessed man who brought peace._**

_He tries to get to his feet, then, stumbling a few times, but he manages to drag himself towards a familiar blue box. He collapses on the door, and that's when I realize. He is dying. The Doctor is dying._

_Alis grave._

**_Lay down your burden._**

_I scream as loudly as I can, thrashing about within my consciousness. Suddenly, something snaps, like a rubber band pulled too tightly, and it feels similar to my migraine lifting. His eyes focus on me, then._

_Numquam singularis._

**_You are never alone._**

_"Doctor?!" I breathe, and more tears spill out of his eyes, his lips turning up in a faint smile. I move towards him, wincing as he shouts in pain, curling up again, hugging his knees to his chest._

_"It's okay, oh God, it'll be okay. Just tell me what's happened. I can get another syringe thingy, I can fix you. Just tell me what's wrong!" I nearly shout, tapping his face as his eyes close a bit, that smile still on his lips. He opens his eyes, those gold eyes, beautiful orbs of pain and knowledge and love._

_"You've done enough, Evy. Just being here." He says, his trembling hand cupping my face. His skin is blazing hot, so hot I have to wonder how he isn't spontaneously combusting. His thumb wipes away some tears that have poured from my eyes. "It's okay."_

_"It's okay, you're telling me this is okay?" I whisper, and I grab his hand. My heart sinks when I see that it is glowing. I'd seen this before, in another dream. What did he call it… Regeneration. I look into his eyes then, taking my turn to wipe his tears away instead._

_"Hey, now. It'll be okay, you'll regenerate. You'll live on, have more adventures with me, and get to be your childish, heroic, delightful self." I say, straightening his red tie, sniffling. He laughs bitterly, squeezing his eyes shut with the pain of the motion._

_"Afraid not, Evelyn Crenshaw. I'm dying. I'll regenerate, but this soul, this personality is dying for good. Some new man is going to strut into the T.A.R.D.I.S and do all those things instead. Not me." Another few tears escape his now red eyes. _

_"Then we'll fix you. It'll be fine, God damn it! Just tell me what to do, tell me how to help you!" I say, my voice getting more and more frantic as a sad smile starts to spread again on his tight lips. He shakes his head. _

_"Thank you, Evy." He says, and his skin glows brighter and brighter before my eyes. I start to scream his name, stroking his blazing hot skin, feeling it burn me and I catch the smell of my skin sizzling. I lurch in anyway, kissing his lips, feeling them respond against mine, searing my mouth desperately._

_Vale decem._

* * *

I wake up sobbing, clutching the orange pillow to my cheek. A hand on my arm makes me yelp, nearly choke on my own tears, and cough all at the same time, which makes for an attractive gurgling sound.

"Evy?"

It's the Doctor, still in his red pajamas, and a look that seems to be unacquainted with the Time Lord's face is painfully apparent on his features. Fear.

"I- I'm sorry, did I wake you? What time is it?" I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hands, dimly registering that it hurts, choking out a laugh. "I guess you should know, Time Lord."

"What happened?" He exclaims, whipping his glasses out of his pajama shirt pocket and scrutinizing the burns covering my hands. "And your face?"

I sniffle, touching two fingers to my lips, and immediately regretting it. They swell quickly, by the second, and I can feel blisters rising beneath the skin.

"But, it was a dream." I whisper, staring at his concerned face, and the tears start again, cascading from my amber eyes, my throat tightening.

"What dream? Evy, tell me what is going on. Those burns are third degree, not just anything could have caused them." He says, following me as I throw myself out of bed, running to the mirror.

"Oh my God," I whisper, seeing the angry, red blisters on my lips and then observing the same on my hands. I stand numbly, slowly realizing what I had just seen.

_This damn tumor must be more powerful than we know._

"Evy." The Doctor says, his voice demanding and a bit impatient. I turn to look at him through watery eyes, and immediately rush toward him. I throw my arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder. He smells like soap and spice.

"Doctor, I'm sorry, but I don't think I should tell you. I really don't." I sob, and he holds me tightly, humming in his chest soothingly.

"Hey now, shhh… You can tell me anything, alright? I've seen pretty much everything in my lifetimes." He coos at me, stroking my hair gently. I let him hold me until I calm down enough to talk.

"Doctor, I saw your death." I whisper, pulling away to look at him. He raises an eyebrow, his gaze resting on my scorched lips with a renewed understanding. Impossibly, a blush rises to my cheeks.

_Contemplating this amazing man's death, and still blushing like a 12 year old school girl. Can nothing dampen my hormones?_

"My death. Like before, you saw me regenerating. Only this time…"

"Only this time, I was there. Really and truly there, because of something the tumor did. I could talk to you, could… touch you."

The Doctor is quiet, and he just pulls me back in for another hug, a long silent hug.

"You were right. You shouldn't tell me. Timeline continuance and all that jazz, eh? But you intuitively knew that, didn't you? Clever girl." He says, and I nod, pulling away to go sit on my bed, feeling numb.

"Isn't there a chance we could change it, though? By telling you, can't I redefine your timeline?" I ask hopefully, but the stony look on his face kills my enthusiasm pretty quickly.

"We need to heal your burns before an infection begins." He says, taking out his sonic screwdriver and coming to kneel in front of me. He pushes a few buttons, turns a few tiny knobs, switches a few levers on or off, and then pushes the big blue button. It buzzes, just like before when I had used it to chase the spider away, only a whole lot less intense. He aims it at my lips, then moves to my hands, a tingling feeling replacing the pain wherever it goes.

"Thank you," I murmur once he's finished, and he nods in reply.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and goes to lean on the wall of the T.A.R.D.I.S, his brow knitted in thought, worry.

Breaks my heart all over again.

I see his tear-filled eyes, the way he still looked happy to see me, even as the golden energy began to eat him up. The excruciating pain of his kiss, his last moment.

"Hey, why don't we choose someplace random to go today? Hmm? See where the old girl takes us?" I say, distracting myself, and hopefully him, as I aim to do, from all this morbidity.

He perks up, smiling a bit at me, and nods. "Sure, I'm always up for a good round of Random Temporal and Intergalactic Coordinate Positioner. Meet you at the console!"

The wall shuts behind him, and I let out all the tension in my body in one big whoosh of a breath.

So many questions. All of them kind of important.

_When was that happening?_

_Where was I when the Doctor so desperately needed me?_

_What had… _I took a gulp to counteract the tightening in my throat… _killed him?_

_Why wouldn't he let me help him? _

_Was that Earth? I mean… that was definitely snow. In an alleyway._

_What can I do to change his future? _

I got up and started to get dressed, brush my hair, ordinary things that took much less thought than changing a timeline does.

_At this point, it'd take a planet full of all things shiny, loud music, and anti-gravity to distract me…_


	13. Deserts Are Evil

"So, where has she taken us?" I ask, pausing with my hand on the door to the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Well, let's not ruin the novelty of it! Let's just find out," the Doctor says, and I grin widely at him before thrusting the door open.

I'm met with grains of sand blowing in my face, and heat so intense that I can already feel my skin burning.

Great hills of orange-silver sand are scattered across the horizon as far as the eye can see, through the sand in your eyes, that is.

"A desert planet." I say, and the Doctor hums in agreement, shutting the T.A.R.D.I.S door behind him, locking it as he always does.

Two suns light the sky into a dazzling, red-orange color, giving the silvery metallic sand that colorful tinge.

I let out a breath of amazement, my heart seeming to be blown away with the gusty desert wind.

_I wonder what kind of creatures live here. They'd be adapted in some way to this arid environment. _

My eyes spot a very tall, dark structure in the distance, the only real sign of inhabitants for what looks like miles and miles around.

"Doctor, I think I see something over to the left there, like a building or-"

I turn to look at him and see that he is staring up at the rusty sky, as if he might either scream in agony or laugh in delight.

_That is the look of a painful memory being wrenched to the surface._

"Doctor?" I say, putting my hand in his, and his eyes dart to mine, as if he just remembered that I was there.

"The sky is a deep orange." He says simply, as if that explained all of what I might want to know.

"It really is. It's stunning, isn't it?" I say gently, searching his face for any sign that we should try a different planet.

_Not sure what is happening right now, but whatever it is, it's ruining the whole 'happy/distracting' theme I had going for this trip._

"Oh…" He breathes, looking up at the sky again, "Oh, yes. Stunning."

We stand for a few moments in the suns. I feel like he needs to just take it all in, for whatever reason.

_I won't pry… I shouldn't pry…_

"Gallifrey has an orange sky doesn't it? Like the towels, and the sheets, and the oven mitt, it's all made of that orange material. Like your sky?" I say carefully, as I can tell that his planet is a touchy subject.

_Maybe he was exiled, or maybe he just hasn't been home in hundreds of years? _

He lets out a soft little laugh.

"I had never thought of that before, but I suppose Rownish silk does resemble our sky. It's grown naturally that deep orange color, very hard to dye."

"Ah, I see… Well don't worry Doctor, I wouldn't mind stopping at Gallifrey if you miss it so much! In fact, I would be delighted to see where you come from. How boring could it be if it looks anything close to this?" I say, squeezing his hand, trying to be as encouraging as possible. He obviously misses his home, and if he's the only thing keeping him from going back…

His Adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallows thickly.

"Evy, I can't go back."

"Trouble with the law?" I ask, nudging him playfully. He just frowns, looking down at the silvery sand.

"It's gone. Gallifrey is gone. Destroyed."

My heart seems to stop and my eyes widen.

_No, no, no, please let that not be true. Because if his planet is gone… Where are all of the other Time Lords?_

"I would say I'm so very sorry, but that… doesn't even begin to cover how… I mean, to lose your home..." I stumble over my emotions, and in so doing, my words.

"I'll always miss it, that old planet." He says softly and gives me a smile that I'm sure he meant to be reassuring but just ends up imploding my heart.

I pull him in for a hug, and he returns it, his arms tightening around me, telling me he might have needed that, just to show him that he isn't alone… Even if what I'm thinking is true. If the other Time Lords…

A thought occurs to me, a troublesome thought.

_He's 900 years old, give or take._

_I can't be the only person he has ever travelled with._

_Every single time he makes a new friend, or buddy, or companion, or whatever he thinks of us as, he has to explain his past, his obviously wretchedly painful past, to each and every one of us. _

I pull back from his embrace to look at him, and I see that his eyes have gone blank, emotionless.

_Christ, it must take a toll on him after a while… _

"Listen. Nothing can erase your past, Doctor, but that doesn't mean you have to live in it. I will never ask you about it again, and I never want you to feel obligated to talk about it… Well… Unless you want to. I mean, I encourage you to try to- I mean, it's healthy to get it all out, I just- You've probably gone through this… hundreds of… lots of times." I trail off, stepping back and running my hand through my hair, giving him a little lopsided grin.

_Why is it that emotion is the thing to make me awkward? Why couldn't it be something less important, like dinner parties, or high school presentations?_

He cracks a real smile then, and I don't feel so bad about my attempt to comfort him.

_At least it wasn't-_

A flash of movement out of the corner of my eye interrupts whatever moment we might have been having. I immediately try to follow it, that quick, indescribable blur.

"What is it?" The Doctor asks, instinctively pulling out the sonic.

I scan the horizon for a bit, then eye the sonic, chuckling a little.

"Out of all the thousands of functions on that little device, not a single one is a weapon, is it?"

"Of course not, it's a screwdriver! You say that as if 'a weapon' is the same thing as 'useful'!" He replies defensively, as if I had insulted his mother.

I laugh, shaking my head. "I didn't see anything, Bob the Builder. Must have been a trick of the heat."

He nods, puts the sonic in one of his pockets, and holds out his arm to me. He waggles his eyebrows, gesturing in the general direction of the tall, dark tower.

"Shall we, Miss Crenshaw?"

"We shall, Mr. Doctor." I say, laughing at the absurdity of that name.

* * *

"How the hell are you not spontaneously combusting in that coat of yours?" I groan, and tie my blouse tighter around my head.

About halfway to the tower, I had decided that layers were bad. Evil, in fact. So I took the outermost layers of my outfit and put them to good use. My blouse is currently serving as a sun-hat/sweat collector.

_I take it back. This planet is not beautiful, this planet is trying to cook us and have us for supper. Obviously._

"My coat? What, you think this little baby only keeps me warm?"

I scoff bitterly, shielding my eyes to look up at the tower for a moment. We're very close now, thankfully.

"That's usually what coats do, you crazy alien."

"Someone's just grumpy because they don't have a beautiful coat that regulates its own temperature to maximize comfort." He says with a pep in his step.

_If this trip wasn't supposed to be to cheer him up, I'd clobber him._

"Of course it regulates its own temperature. Of course, it does." I grumble, picking up the pace when I see the shade of the tower getting closer and closer.

It's even more gigantic than it had seemed a mile away. It's cylindrical in shape, and at least two hundred feet tall. Thick, brown bricks make up the base, with dark grey ones replacing them as it extends up towards the orange sky. The entrance to the tower appears to be just a gaping hole in the bricks, obviously out of place.

Almost as if something had blasted its way in.

We pause outside the hole, peeking into the shadowy interior. I almost moan at the feel of cool air on my skin.

"Well, let's see who's home!" The Doctor says, and steps into the tower, over the rubble. I scramble after him eagerly.

_I'm just glad that whoever they are, they have air conditioning._


	14. Thirsty, Thirsty

Stepping into the tower yields a surprise, to say the least. My shoes are immediately soaked, in water.

"Water?" The Doctor says, sloshing further into the tower, looking around with the sonic buzzing away. It slightly irritates my already throbbing migraine. I squint and try to focus on what is before me, not what's pulsing away in my head, containing nuclear energy…

A green smell, like rain kissed leaves, floats all about the room. It's surprisingly cramped inside, but only because it is stuffed with barrels. Or, I assume them to be barrels, until I touch one.

"Ouch! Thorny little suckers, aren't they?" I say, putting my pricked finger in my mouth. "What are they, cactuses?"

The Doctor is silent for a bit, the buzzing having stopped. He snatches a torch off the wall, and lights it using one of the sonic's 3051 settings, I assume.

"I think they were the indigenous species. Dead now."

I look around, this information and the light giving me a whole new scene to look at.

The explosion that had caused the hole in the wall had killed at least 40 of the creatures, their bodies laying shattered within the blast radius. The leafy smelling water…

_It's not water at all, is it?_

I take a good look at the bunched up things I used to think were hundreds of barrels. I now see contorted little faces on them, with one sunken eye in the center and horridly grimacing mouths, forever locked in silent screams. They look like dried grapes, as if they'd been set out in the sun for days and days.

I cover my mouth with my hand in horror, unconsciously sloshing my way over to the Doctor, to where it's safest.

"What did this?"

"Only one way to figure that out, Evy," The Doctor says, his face grim but his eyes alight with excitement. He moves towards a doorway, barely illuminated by the flickering torch. "C'mon, stay close, keep an eye out for anything strange."

"Right okay, I'll just do that. Define strange."

"Oh you know, the usual every day type of strange. Big, small, fanged, clawed, slimy, scaly-"

The ghost of a shadow out of the corner of my eye makes me gasp and clutch the Doctor's arm, and he whirls around, checking me to make sure I'm okay.

"What is it?"

"The- I saw something move, but it could have… Maybe it was just a shadow from when you moved the torch?"

The Doctor frowns, his eyes scanning the room. They pause for a bit in one particular spot, and I squint into the darkness, trying to see what he's seeing. I only see more sad, little cactus-barrel people, huddled together in their last moments. Suddenly he turns me to look at him, his hand on my shoulder, his gold eyes boring into mine.

"I'll say this again, stay close." He says, and I raise my eyebrows, glancing around after tearing myself away from his gaze.

"Why?" I ask, and he releases me to go through the stone doorway.

"Because you humans have a tendency to wander off in dangerous situations." He says, and I'm reminded that he has had travelling companions before me.

_And what happened to them when they wandered off, I wonder?_

"And is this? A dangerous situation, I mean?"

He raises the torch to light a dangling lantern, and suddenly, that fire spreads from lantern to lantern through some kind of string, until the whole room is lit.

"Very. Those creatures were frightened when they died, terrified in fact. I have a few ideas of what could have done this, and none of them are things you ever want to meet, not in your wildest nightmares."

I gulp and take a look around the room. It's some kind of dining hall, I think. There are cute, round stone tables, decorated with carved runes all over their surfaces. Pillows encircle each table, to sit on, I assume. I walk forward to run my fingers across the runes, and before my very eyes, the runes scramble themselves into meaningful language.

The Doctor must notice my amazement. "The T.A.R.D.I.S translates all written and spoken language automatically, as long as she's near and functional."

The words that form from the runes make me wish she hadn't done me that favor.

"Doomed. No hope. No salvation. No escape. Don't look at them or they drain you dry…" I whisper, reading the hastily carved runes, with increasing horror. "Doctor, what happened to these poor people?"

"Well, it's certainly getting narrowed down. Drain you dry? I'd have to say that would have to be either the Varysi or the Hollering Swarm. Maybe a few Drenths. I'd prefer the Drenths, big old nasty slugs. Scared of loud sounds."

"And the Varysi, the Hollering Swarm? Could they have done this?"

"Both hunt water-based life forms, and both could have done it. Though, I suppose we'd know if the Hollering Swarm was here, hollering and such…"

"Right, so it's either the Varysi or the Drenths. Okay, awesome… The Varysi are, what exactly?"

"The sort of… vampire bats of the fifteenth T-sector of the Jedile galaxy. Aggressive brutes, especially when deprived of a food source."

"Like if they'd been in the desert for an extended period of time?" I ask, glancing around again, seeing a few blurs of movement out of the corner of my eye.

A low growl from behind us, in the doorway from which we'd entered the dining hall, makes me nearly jump out of my skin. I turn to look so fast that I nearly give myself whiplash.

_There's nothing there, though! Nothing, just… absolutely nothing!_

"Exactly… RUN!" The Doctor shouts, grabbing my hand and yanking me towards the opposite end of the room. I pump my legs as fast as I can, and try to ignore my piercing migraine.

_It's as if it's begging to be used. Perhaps adrenaline factors into how easily the energy is released?_

We sprint through a doorway, the torch illuminating a staircase, and immediately we bound up it. More growls are accumulating behind us, and it only makes my migraine worse, the more frantic I get.

"Do these stairs ever end?" I shout between gasps for breath. It feels like we've been running for at least four thousand years, or maybe four minutes, who knows. My legs are burning with the effort to keep running up the stone steps. "I only have one heart, you know!"

"Just keep going! We have to keep going!" The Doctor shouts, his hand gripping mine tighter, and I put more effort into my strides, taking the steps two at a time, and the Doctor gladly follows suit.

At last, after what seems like an eternity, we reach a landing, and immediately swerve off of the stairs and into a room. Thankfully it has a door, and that door is made of stone, and after we slide the stone door to cover the doorway, it makes an ominous scraping noise.

_I suppose that must be what it sounds like when a stone door locks?_

I bend over, with my hands on my knees, catching my breath. Then I slide down the stone door to sit on the ground, with my head between my knees. My migraine is thudding away, constantly altering between extreme pain and numbness.

"So… It's the Varysi. A lot of them, too! What are they doing on a desert planet? Very out of character for them, they'd need a very good reason to come here in the first place. And why stay?" The Doctor says, not even really needing a moment to recover.

_Note to self. Grow another heart; very useful in chase scenes._

A powerful slam against the stone door makes me scramble to my feet, and the Doctor guides me to stand behind him. The stone door trembles as the Varysi pound on it, inhuman screeching and growling coming through it muffled and garbled.

"They're invisible."

"Must be a perception filter, you can only see them when you're not looking directly at them… It's a common, cheap technology sold in a lot of marketplace planets. Cheap because it adds stealth, but isn't a full alteration of perception… So they came in needing stealth. But why? Why would the Varysi be here in the first place?"

The Doctor begins to pace, ranting to himself, but my attention is elsewhere.

_We aren't alone in this big stone room._

In the farthest corner of the room, shrouded in darkness, a figure sits crouched, hunched over. I can tell it's alive from quick, irregular motions of its shoulders.

_Breathing is quickened, indicative of severe dehydration and malnutrition…_

"Doctor." I whisper, and he pauses in his rant to look at me, and I gesture towards the corner.

"Oh, hello!" The Doctor exclaims, and despite his cheery tune, he cautiously approaches the figure, prepared to dodge, duck, or roll at any moment.

"I'm the Doctor, this is Evy. We seem to have all gotten ourselves into the same predicament… Stuck in this stone room, sorry about that!"

The figure doesn't move from its spot.

The Doctor creeps closer, and the torch illuminates dark grey, leathery wings, tipped with ivory horns. They unfurl slowly, and the what-I-assume-to-be-a-Varysi stands up to its full height. Which happens to be gigantic. It glances at the door, seeming to notice the pounding and snarling for the first time.

Its face is flat, as is its nose, with thin lips covering obviously sharp teeth. It's wearing clothing, plain black robes, and one of its ears is pierced with a silver hoop earring. Its black eyes look surprisingly human, bloodshot and hopeless, as they move from the Doctor to me, back to the Doctor.

"Yes, there we are! You are beautiful, you truly are!" The Doctor says, grinning proudly at the creature.

It just takes a step towards us, lifting its head and sniffing the stale air. It's bloodshot eyes land on me, specifically my hand.

"Evy, don't move, she can smell your open wound. Anything liquid will do for her at this point," The Doctor says calmly, and I hold my breath, as if that might make me vanish altogether.

"Open wound? It was a little prick of the finger, not even bleeding anymore." I hiss, my heartbeat spiking when the Varysi opens its maw to let out a happy little mewling sound. She starts towards me enthusiastically, thirst in her gaze. The Doctor runs in front of her, shouting nonsense, waving his arms like the insane genius of an idiot that he is.

She uses her wing to swipe him out of the way, like an annoying insect buzzing around her head.

"Doctor!" I shout, my eyes darting between the Doctor's crumpled form on the ground and the 500 pounds of leathery death bounding towards me.

_If there is a time to try to use this stupid tumor, I'd say this is a good one._

I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on that little ball of pain inside my head. Then I open my eyes, and, just as I had wanted, blocks of stone are flying from the walls, bombarding the creature. It shrieks, flaring its wings in fury.

_Okay, so I managed to piss it off. Fantastic._

The Varysi renews its charge at me, snarling ferociously, using its wings to propel it forward. I swipe it down using the air in its wings, feeling all of the air in the room around me. I compress it all on top of the creature, trying to keep it down. I cough, knowing by doing so, I'm taking away my own air supply. And the Doctor's. He's getting to his feet now, watching me in both awe and what seems like fear. The Varysi thrashes under the pressure on top of her, and I know how much energy its taking to keep her there isn't worth the effort. So I change tactics. I clench my fists, and suddenly a hole opens up in the floor. With a screech, the Varysi falls through, and I seal it back up behind her. It's not at all how a floor should look, all piled up and haphazard, but it's sealed nonetheless.

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and concentrating on my center of gravity.

"I refuse to pass out. Wouldn't want you to have to draw a moustache on me, now would we?" I say.


	15. A Mad Man's Belief

"Evy, you beautiful, brilliant, clever human!" The Doctor says, running over to me and lifting me up, spinning around like we're children. "Bit of a quick learner, are we?"

"Oh, it was nothing, really, quite simple…" I say, giving the Doctor a sideways glance. "But I really am pretty brilliant, I mean did you see that? I just took on a 10 foot tall bat, and I won!"

The pounding on the stone door becomes so violent that I practically inhale my tongue, and all of my bravado is gone in under two seconds.

"But not sure if I can take on another twenty of them..." I squeak, biting my lip nervously as the reality of the situation crashes down on me.

_Okay… So we are now stuck here, with only a stone door to keep the Varysi from draining every drop of blood from our bodies. We have nothing to really use, and most of my energy is drained… _

_Well, this isn't exactly what I had in mind for this trip. I bet the Doctor is real cheery now, trapped like a rat, awaiting death._

"Alright, I've had worse, what have we got, what have we got…" The Doctor shouts, running around the shadowy stone room, picking up anything he finds. A loose stone, a chain and shackle, old stone cups- he tosses them over his shoulder, making quite the racket. "Anything at all, anything we can use! Think, you old coot, think!"

He paces back and forth, his hands tangled in his hair.

"Well, if it helps, I still have a bit of energy left. Hence the not passing out, and such…"

He turns to look at me, hands still in his hair, eyes still wide, and I can practically see the insanely quick turn of the wheels in that alien head of his.

"If my calculations are correct, and in fact they are, this wall," He gestures to the only rounded wall in the room, "is facing about seventy degrees from where we left the T.A.R.D.I.S. If you could get the trajectory right, and given you have just enough energy to do it, you could use the stone floor to launch us out of here, right to safety. Or at least closer to safety than we are in here."

_I ponder that for a moment. Removing the wall will take a bit of energy, not too much, but that whole 'launching' thing sounds like it might take the last of the energy I have, maybe more… What happens if I try to use up more than I have?_

A worrying cracking sound suddenly comes from the stone door, and I glance over to see a thin fissure, running right up the middle of the door. It gets wider with every pound on the door.

"What do you say?" The Doctor says, offering me his arm, just like he had in the beginning of this wayward trip. I give him my best fakely-confident smile and take it, a silent agreement to try my best.

I concentrate on that little twinge on pain in my brain, and it takes me much longer to tap into it. Once I do, I wave my hand over the rounded wall, and the stone blocks simply drop out of the wall, leaving a nicely sized hole. The twinge of pain becomes nearly non-existent after that expenditure of energy.

The T.A.R.D.I.S sits where we left her, about a mile away from the tower, off to our right, shimmering in the heat like a mirage.

I look down at the floor, seeing that the Doctor is standing on one stone, and I on another.

_Just two measly, little stones, Evy. You got this._

But it's so difficult to feel the matter of the stones, I can barely imagine even trying to move them.

A portion of the door is blasted away to reveal little blurs of gray movement, and the snarling, screeching Varysi are trying to claw their way through to us.

"Evy." The Doctor says, and I look at him, knowing he'll see terror in my eyes. "You can do it. You're more powerful than you know, than even I know."

He pats my hand, still resting in the crook of his arm. His sad gold eyes simultaneously hold fear and hope behind that calm façade of his.

_I'll take courage from his belief in me. I will always take courage from that mad man's belief in something so small as me._

I steel my nerves and look out to into the orange-silver abyss below us, the blue dot, our salvation, sitting a mile away from us.

I turn towards it, and get as good of a mental grasp on the stones as I possibly can, and then I pour all of my effort and energy into hurling our two stones into the rusty sky towards the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Allons-y!" The Doctor shouts, laughing like a maniac as we careen wildly out of the tower and into the desert air.

Somewhere in the deep recesses my mind, I know that this was definitely a mistake. My heart stops for a split second, thudding irregularly, desperately trying to get back into rhythm. Black spots cloud my vision, and my body feels limp, as if it isn't my own to command.

Cold, liquid fear spreads through my veins.

_Have I gone too far? Is this what dying feels like?_

Orange-silver sand rises to meet us, and my eyes close of their own accord.


	16. Robot Guys?

Bars. Metal bars are the only thing I can see when I open my eyes.

"What?" I mutter, pressing my thumbs into my temples, a migraine starting to throb.

_Oh, hello my old friend. Back so soon?_

I must have been out a good day or so, if my mutated cells have had enough time to split some atoms.

_Never thought I'd be thinking any semblance of that thought… At least I'm alive?_

I take in my surroundings before doing anything else. It's a very pristine, well-kept jail. Or something of the sort. It's a circular room, with metal jail cells making up the walls. In the center is something I've never seen before. Maybe it's a console like the Doctor's, just a lot smaller, and less complicated? It looks to be made of the same metal as the jail cells.

"Hello? Doctor?" I call out, hoping he's in one of the other cells.

"The Doctor will be exterminated. You will cease communication."

I freeze, unsure if my ears deceive me. The console just spoke.

"Why, where is he, what have you done to The Doctor?" I say, getting to my feet and grabbing the bars of my cell. They hum and vibrate slightly beneath my hands, and I know that we are moving, probably on some kind of space ship. Just then, the console's top half swivels, and a sort of limb, obviously a visual device, turns to look at me.

_That is not a console, that is definitely an alien._

"Oh! Well, this is embarrassing, I thought you were part of the ship. Suggestion, maybe change your style, so that, you know, you don't exactly match your ship." I say lightly, and the robot moves closer to the cell.

"You will cease communication." It grates out in its mechanical voice. I just glower at it, staring directly into its little eye device… thing.

"And you will tell me where the Doctor is."

"The Doctor will be located shortly. The Doctor cannot resist rescuing his companions. The Doctor will be exterminated." The robot says, and my mind works to process this new information.

_Okay, so from what I gather, the Doctor is not even on this ship. These robots are searching for him, and they are using me as bait to find him. Once they find him they-_

"Just to be sure, what are you going to do to the Doctor?" I say, raising an eyebrow at the robot.

"The Doctor will be exterminated." It says in that same unnecessarily loud voice.

"That's what I thought."

-_want to kill him. Good. Just fantastic. I'm out for a quick, involuntary, probably brain damaging nap, and he loses me to some robots._

"I'd like to suggest letting me out of this cell. In just a little bit, you're really going to wish I was on your side." I say, pressing my face up against the bars, trying my best not to look smug.

The robot just stares at me through its little eye-stalk and then swivels its head back to stare at the doorway again.

"Rude." I say simply, and go to sit back down on the floor in the far corner of the cell. "You should really have put a chair in here, you know… Pretty uncomfortable."

* * *

Time passes, and the Doctor doesn't show up. I start to worry about him, since a million things could have happened. I mean, I don't even know how I got on this ship to start with, who knows where the Doctor might be? I know he isn't dead. I guess being tormented emotionally and mentally by seeing that amazing man's horrifically sad death has its advantages… But he might be wounded, or maybe he got captured by some other screaming robot guys?

I'm not sure how much time passes before I'm pacing back in forth in my cell like a caged tiger.

The only good news is that my tumor is still doing its impossible thing. Splitting atoms, making my brain a living time-bomb.

_My migraine feels pretty ripe for the picking, right about now._

"So, robot guy-"

"I am a Dalek, far superior to a robot."

"Dalek, you say? Huh… Right, so anyway, robot guy, I'd just like to give you one last chance to let me out of this cell."

It remains silent, its eye-stalk still trained on the doorway.

"Fine, I'll just go ahead and let myself out, then." I say, and, easily tapping into my migraine, grab the bars and wrench them apart. It's more difficult to do than I expected. The metal must be very, very strong, fortified with some unearthly material.

"The companion will halt or be exterminated!" The Dalek screams, and another limb moves to point at me.

"Oh, is that your gun, right there?" I say, and the odd little limb bends immediately, its tip folding into itself.

"Weapons system compromised, the companion is escaping! The companion is escaping!"

"Right, well, I've got things to do, can't hang around here all day." I say, and walk through the doorway. It just leads to more metal hallways, and as I walk through them, I realize that this ship must be mostly abandoned. And mostly huge.

_How many robots does it take to man a space ship?_

_Not many, apparently._

Suddenly, an unrecognizable sound comes from behind me, and the metal wall right near my head explodes, sparking and buzzing.

"The companion must be exterminated! Exterminate!"

Three Daleks are rounding the corner behind me, and I quickly gauge the amount of energy I have left to spend. It didn't take much getting out of that jail, but I still have to find a way to get off of a spaceship, in space, without the Doctor's help.

_I think being conservative is best at the moment._

I take off sprinting down the hallway, turning a few times, trying my best to lose the metal death-traps. I see a doorway at the end of one particularly long hallway, so I make my way to it. Just as I pass through it and turn, I smash into something warm and definitely not metallic.

"Blimey, watch where you're going! Where'd you learn to run for your life, anyways?" The Doctor says indignantly, giving me the most infuriating smile I think I've ever seen in my whole entire life.


	17. Too Far

"Doctor, oh my God!" I breathe out, and throw my arms around him. He hugs me back tightly, laughing as if nothing could make him happier than to see me again.

"Evelyn Crenshaw, look at you! Fighting the good fight," He says, beaming at me proudly.

"Well _Mr. Doctor_, I'm glad you made it to the party, however late you might be! I understand, busy schedule and all, can't bother yourself with such trifling matters as your friends being abducted by robots." I scold him, and he gestures to his hands as if what's in them excuses his lateness. He's holding two metal contraptions. One is shaped like a gun, the other is just a disk of blinking, multi-colored lights on what looks like a motherboard.

"Is… Sorry, but is that a gun you've got in your hand? _A weapon?_" I say, smiling at him scandalously, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

"No! Of course not, it's just an Atomic Stasis Metabolizer I fashioned, locks organisms into the very spot they're in when you use it on them, can't move for at least 15 hours. So, excuse me if I had to take a few hours to build an Atomic Stasis Metabolizer and a DNA Fingerprint Tracking Device from scratch out of space junk, and I do mean junk! Besides… It's me they wanted to kill, not you."

"A few hours?" I say, dumbfounded. "I've only been here for a few hours?"

"Well… Yeah." He replies, searching my face for the source of my confusion.

_My migraine was nearly back full force by the time I woke up, meaning the rate of atomic splitting is increasing exponentially… Oh, this cannot be good at all._

"And how do you explain losing me to robots?" I yell, smacking his arm.

"Oi!" He says, giving me a reproving look.

"I saved you from a gigantic man-eating spider, and no one abducted you! But when I'm the one unconscious, I get stolen by robots!" I shout, angrily hugging him again, just to reassure myself that he's okay.

"I thought you were deathly wounded and alone on some godforsaken desert planet infested by vampire bats, you stupid man." I murmur and he pulls back to look at me.

"Nope, perfectly fine! Fantastic, in fact, see?" He says, and he smiles slightly, glancing down at my pouting lips for a brief second. "As for how I lost you to the Daleks, not robots, Daleks, that is a very long story involving a Varysi following me into the T.A.R.D.I.S, causing a bit of a ruckus, and then crashing into an asteroid, so-"

"Exterminate!"

A laser blasts its way right past the Doctor's head, sizzling a few strands of his tousled chocolate hair.

"It's a bit of a 'tell you later' kind of story!" He shouts, chucking the DNA tracker and grabbing my hand. We launch ourselves down the hallway, and down another hallway, and another.

"Do you even know where we're going?" I shout over the sound of our feet pounding the metal floor.

"Main Command Chamber." He shouts back, turning sharply through a doorway, and whipping out the sonic screwdriver, using it on the door frame. A thick slab of metal slams down behind us, and I turn to have a look at this Main Command Chamber. My heart nearly leaps into my throat at the sight of a dozen Daleks, all aiming their weapons systems at us, ready to kill. Adrenaline shoots through me, and a groaning, screeching sound wracks my ears as I instinctively wrench a huge portion of the floor up to shield us from the Daleks. The Doctor raises an arm to shield his face as sparks fly from the infrastructure of the ship beneath it, and an alarm sounds.

No lasers or obnoxious robotic voices can be heard over the alarm.

"Evy," The Doctor says, gently grabbing my chin between two long fingers and looking into my eyes, as if searching for something, "You need to stop. Using that much energy again, so soon… Well, it's obviously not good for you."

_What does he mean, obviously?_

"Sorry, it was an accident, I didn't mean to do that…" I say, realizing that the Doctor must have used that fancy stun gun on these Daleks.

"I know…" The Doctor says, his brow furrowing before he wipes his face of worry and leaps into action, quite literally. He tosses me the Stasis gun and bounds past the accidental wall of metal, using the sonic on a bulbous, glassy contraption, sitting on a metallic stand. A little metal door pops open on the stand, and he drops to his knees, yanking out wires and doing Lord-knows-what to them with the sonic.

"Soon, the Daleks will reach us, and it'll be like cake for them, figuring out the code I put on that door. I need some time to reverse the teleportation coordinates, and I need you to buy me that time, Evy." He says. I examine the little gun in my hand, seeing that the trigger is made out of an old lip balm tube.

_Out of all the junk in space…_

"And none of that matter manipulation, got it? Never mind the situation, no matter what, you just don't." He adds, slamming the little door shut and moving to a larger machine next to it.

"No problem, you just keep doing your thing, you crazy alien." I mutter, training my eyes and the Stasis gun on the door.

_And no promises…_

After a few moments, I hear muffled Dalek-shouting outside the door. The alarm stops abruptly, and before I know it, the door is opening.

I squeeze the finger on the lip balm, and a powerful blast of light leaves the tiny gun, kicking back quite a bit. I stumble a little, seeing that one of the three Daleks has stopped in its tracks.

I shoot a few more times, but neither of the Daleks are affected, indicating that I am actually a horrible shot, and they let loose a few lasers. I flinch, ducking to try and avoid them. One laser blast hits the machine the Doctor is working on, and it sparks furiously.

"No, no no no! Evy, more stasis-ing, less missing!" I hear him yell, but I dare not remove my eyes from the Daleks. They advance at their normal leisurely pace.

"It is futile, you will be exterminated!" One of them says, and I shoot the Stasis gun at it, but my finger pulls at nothing, nothing but air. I look down to see the lip balm on the floor near my feet.

"You have got to be kidding me." I hiss, quickly examining the gun, then tossing it at one of the Daleks. It bounces off of it with a metallic 'ting', landing uselessly a few feet away. I take a deep breath, preparing myself to use the tumor.

"Evy, don't." The Doctor warns, and I hear the tic-tac of buttons being pressed.

"How will it feel, Doctor? What emotion will destroy you once your companion exists no longer? Hatred, beautiful hatred? The same we possess for you?" A Dalek says, and I back up as they continue to advance, doing my best to ignore the throbbing in my head, begging to be released.

"You won't harm her because you know that if you do, I will never stop, I will never sleep, I will never give up. Not until every single Dalek in this universe is a pile of scrap metal, floating through the vacuum of space! Tell me, how will _that_ feel, Dalek?"

The blood-lust in his voice startles me, and I rip my eyes away from the Daleks to look at him. He has stopped working and is now glaring at the Daleks, his fists clenched so tightly, the white of the bone shows through, his teeth bared in a furious snarling grimace.

That seems to give them pause. They swivel their eye-stalks back and forth between the Doctor and I.

_For a guy who refuses to carry real weapons, he sure seems to have every intent upon following through with that little promise._

I watch him for a moment, quietly making my decision.

"Don't you dare." The Doctor says, his eyes moving to me immediately as if he feels the energy in my brain being utilized.

I say nothing, giving him a coy little smirk. I turn my attention to the Daleks.

"Evy, stop!"

Their weapon-stalks suddenly rip themselves off, and the eye-stalks curl towards the ceiling, sizzling as if being super-heated.

The metal plates of their robotic bodies droop and glow red, the heat I'm creating between their atoms dissolving the close bonds of the molecules. I then push them out of the room, forcing the metal slab down, and super-heating the edges, effectively sealing us in and them out.

"Right then," I say, dusting my hands off as if I had actually used them, "Almost finished, are you?"

"Evy, you shouldn't have done that. Ten more seconds and we're out of here, you didn't need to do that." He says, and the direction of his anger turns to me so quickly, it leaves me reeling.

"Because talking to them would've worked for much longer, I'm sure. They were going to-"

A tickling warmth on my cheek distracts me, and I raise my hand to it hesitantly. My fingers come away red, and nausea racks through me like lightning, leaving me breathless.

"Am I… Is this blood? I'm bleeding from my eyes?" I say, my voice rising in pitch as fear claws its way from my stomach up my throat.

The Doctor's face crumples before he turns to throw a few levers.

"Take my hand." He commands, his voice flat. I do as he says, my whole body trembling, and I know he feels it because he squeezes my hand before turning to sonic the machine one last time.


	18. Always Alright

**A/N**

**Hey everyone! I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone who has reviewed, and also those who are even reading my story. It's seriously the best feeling to know that for some reason, people even remotely enjoy my story-telling. I see a new review, and I just stare at it, smiling and laughing happily to myself like a maniac :D So... I think I love you guys 3**

**Also, angsty chapter, but I promise it'll get a little lighter.**

**The Doctor is always alright, right? So are his companions!**

**Right? RIGHT?!**

**Anyways, thanks again my lovelies. Hope you are enjoying it! I know I'm having a blast writing!**

**-A.**

* * *

Back on the T.A.R.D.I.S at last, but I feel far from safe.

The Doctor is using one of the orange towels to help me clean my face. It's obvious that he is carefully keeping his own free of emotion, to keep me from panicking, or going into shock, or whatever.

"I feel fine, though. Bit tired and sore, but other than that, I feel great!" I say, not sure who I'm trying to convince of my wellness.

He gives me a little smile, but stays silent, and I close my eyes to allow him to clean my eyelids.

I think back to when he had told me that he'd lost people before, lost his friends. How broken and small he had looked…

_I don't want to be another ghost weighing down this man's soul, constantly filling and refilling it with sorrow…_

I open my eyes when I no longer feel the towel's silky touch, and he has his back to me, hands on the railing that surrounds the console. His whole body looks so tense, I fear he may explode with that hidden rage I had seen earlier if I so much as touch him.

Nevertheless, I reach out to lay my hand on his shoulder. He lets out a breath, allowing his muscles to relax a little.

"Doctor, I know I don't have long. That phenomenon really only occurs for one reason… External hemorrhaging of the eyes means the pressure in the brain is building up. Which means that the tumor is growing in size… I know that." I say gently, and he turns to look at me. His eyes are burning, tumultuous, liquid gold.

"I'll search for a way. I'll search everywhere for a way to save you, Evy. There has to be something." He says adamantly, not denying the fact that I am dying. I also appreciate him not promising to save me. That would be cruel.

I smile at him, my eyes roving his face, from his thin lips to his rumpled hair, memorizing it all.

"If you can just stop using it until we can figure something out, maybe…" He trails off when I start shaking my head. I bite my lip, feeling my eyes sting.

"How can I stop doing something that happens with or without my control?" I say, my voice gravelly with emotion. I clear my throat and look to the floor of the T.A.R.D.I.S, plastering on another smile for him.

"No… I don't think so, Doctor." I say, trying to keep my breathing even.

Silence dominates the T.A.R.D.I.S for a while. Even the usual beeping and booping of the console is absent, as if she feels the gravity of the situation.

"But, you know what I do think? Tomorrow, I think I'd really like to go to a party. A ball, even. Something extravagant and amazing!" I say, raising my voice to hide the fear in my heart. He nods slowly, and I can visibly see him picking himself up emotionally, mentally.

"Extravagant and amazing… Well, I think that can definitely be arranged. You know where the best parties happen, don't you?" He says, a glimmer of his old, boisterous self showing through in his eyes.

"Oh, I don't know, if I had to guess anywhere and anywhen in all of time and space, I'd say… New York, the mid 1920's?" I say hopefully, and he grins at me.

"Precisely." He says, and I let out a genuine laugh.

_Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted to see a party from the 20's!_

"Well then, if I'm going to properly get my party on tomorrow, I'd better clean up and get some rest." I say, giving him a wink as I turn away to walk around the console, towards where I know our bedrooms will be.

He just nods and starts typing on one of the console's keyboards.

"See you in about eight hours!" He says, which makes me smirk. In here, billions upon billions of mornings are happening at once. Simultaneously, billions upon billions of nights are also happening.

_I guess 'see you in the morning' would really not be appropriate. I wonder if Time Lords even say things like that to each other?_

_'Want to go to dinner tomorrow?"_

_'Which tomorrow?'_

I smile at the delightful absurdity of my crazy alien, leaping through time, hopping from place to place in space, taking adventure by the horns, demanding to live rather than just exist.

_I'll be happy with this death of mine, no matter what. Because for one glorious moment, I was the one doing all of that, too. I was the one by his side, running hand in hand through the glowing stars._

A few tears slip out of my sore eyes as the door to my bedroom disappears behind me. I cover my face with my hands, letting go of my emotions, allowing myself to feel grief for myself for the first and last time.

_I demanded to live, and I will be proud of that, no matter what._

_No matter how my adventure ends._


	19. Special Occasions Only

When I wake up, I can feel the weight of my migraine heavily in my brain. Under such a weight, it takes quite a while to force full consciousness. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit for a while, absentmindedly stroking the orange sheets.

_How many days will I have left to do this?_

I angrily shove that thought out of my mind, suddenly furious at the short amount of time it took for my thoughts to turn sour. It seems ungrateful to spend any time feeling sorry for myself at this point.

I jump up, getting ready in a flurry of determination. The doorway opens up as I decide to ask the Doctor something. His bedroom is empty, his bed untouched.

_I swear, T.A.R.D.I.S, we are not repeating the shower escapade. I mean it._

I cautiously peek into the console room to see the Doctor sitting on a stool, surrounded by open books, slumped over the part of the console that looks like a computer. His face is peaceful in sleep, even pressed awkwardly against the keyboard.

_He must have been up the entire time I've been sleeping! What on Earth was he doing?_

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I creep towards his sleeping form to check the monitor. I can't understand most of the words on the screen, but there is a basic outline of a person, a female, with a red dot in the front of its head. On the sides of the diagram, it looks like he had been typing commands to the computer. After each sentence full of what must be intergalactic medical jargon, the computer had only one reply.

**Error; Lethal.**

My throat tightens immediately, understanding that he was looking for a solution. I swallow down the tears of gratitude threatening to fall, and take a breath to steady myself.

"Doctor!" I say, and he jerks awake, blinking rapidly at me.

"Oh, hello!" He says brightly, his voice grainy and full of sleep. It makes me smile.

"Yes, hello! Don't you look comfy!" I say, and he stands up, stretching his back and arms, yawning widely.

"Remind me not to fall asleep like that ever again," he says, rolling his head around on his neck, and it cracks several times. He casually stretches his arm over to press a button on the keyboard, and the monitor goes black.

"Feeling rested, ready for a night in the roaring twenties?"

"Well, I would be, but nothing of mine really screams '1920's'. In fact, none of my clothes really scream 'party' either…" I say, and he grins, nodding to the doorway behind me.

"Well, just through there, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." He says, and I raise an eyebrow at him, turning on my heel and practically jogging through the doorway.

What I see before me must be the definition of every woman's dream, ever.

It's a gigantic wardrobe, with stairs winding up and up, at least thirty feet, each level full of clothing.

The Doctor follows me in, his hands in his pockets, beaming proudly. I run my hands over the closest items. A rough Mexican poncho, some kind of stretchy bright magenta body suit with black jewels covering every inch, a dark green and gold Renaissance style dress, soft as velvet.

"Why do you have dresses?" I ask, quirking an eyebrow up at him, and he shrugs.

"For just such occasions! Sometimes, people like to get dressed up, and I like to provide, so sue me!"

I laugh, and I see his face soften at the sound.

"Choose anything you like, anything at all," he says, and then he bounds his way up the steps. "I know exactly what I'm wearing. A classic, if you ask me."

I stop paying attention to what he says after that, because… well, because clothes. So many clothes, so many styles and colors and fabrics and time periods, it's a literal dream come true.

I search each level, pulling out every single item I even vaguely think is attractive, dragging them all to my room to try on.

By the time I find the perfect dress, at least three hours have passed, and my room is ground zero. I'm ankle deep in clothing, and I can barely even see the orange sheets of my bed under all of the sparkly fabric.

_But, oh, was it worth this disaster…. _

I gaze at myself in the mirror, wearing a glimmering gold dress. Even though I know it wasn't the latest style for the 20's, it's form fitting, just how I like it. It clings perfectly to my waist and hips. The neckline plunges to a V, low enough to display, but modest enough not to distract. The back of the dress is the best part. It criss-crosses, back and forth across my skin, all the way to the small of my back, to create the most delicate design I've ever seen. The length of the dress is also longer than is fashionable for the 20's, but I can't help that I've fallen head over heels for this dress.

I can hardly contain my excitement, as I run to the shower, run back to my room, curl my hair, do my make-up how I like it, put on the modest gold heels and my dream dress, along with a flapper's headband and long, gold gloves…

_So much effort being a woman… But so much damn fun! The Time Lord better appreciate all this work._

I take one last glance into the mirror, and barely recognize myself. My dark hair cascades down my back in loose curls, framing my face to soften the sharpness of my jawline. The gold of the dress gives my skin a certain sun-kissed sort of glow. My light amber eyes contrast against the darkness of my hair, making me look sophisticated and mysterious.

_Me, sophisticated and mysterious? Right, sure. I'm like an awkward sheep in an attractive wolf's clothing._

I feel the familiar lurch of the T.A.R.D.I.S, and I'm tossed up against the mirror, giving me a very close-up of myself, still looking fabulous, if I do say so myself.

_That would be my cue!_

I sashay out of my room, through the Doctor's room, and into the console room, feeling strangely powerful in this get-up.

"What do you think, Time Lord? Do I look ready to roar?" I say, striking a few poses, and he smiles widely. He's got on a fitted black suit, with a striped black and gray vest under his black coat.

_And a cute little bow tie!_

"You look…" He clears his throat, fiddling with the black bow tie, "Scrumptious."

I have to hold back a snort of laughter at that.

_Scrumptious?! What am I, a choice cut of steak?_

"And by scrumptious, I mean lovely, I don't know why I said scrumptious, let's just forget that ever happened, how about it?" he says quickly, running a hand through his hair, and I press my lips together to keep the laughter from bubbling up.

_His cheeks are red enough already, no need to torture the man._

"Fair enough" I say, smiling. Then something catches my eye. Something very out of the ordinary.

"Doctor… You're wearing dress shoes!" I say, pointing to them as if they were rabid animals nipping at his ankles. They might as well be, for how strange it looks on him.

"Special occasions only!" He says, and my eyes fall upon another very strange, very out of place thing.

"You're wearing celery." I state simply, and he glances down as if he hadn't known. He has pinned a little piece of celery to the front of his suit, like a boutonnière.

"Again, special occasions only!" He says, grinning cheekily. He offers me his arm, wiggling his eyebrows towards the doors of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Shall we, Miss Crenshaw?"

I can't help the little excited squeaky laugh that escapes me as I take his arm happily.

"We shall, Mr. Doctor!"


	20. An Overly Elegant Evening

"So, when exactly are we?" I ask, craning my head up to look at the skyscrapers looming in the moonlight. From all the way down here on the sidewalk, it feels like they could topple over on us at any second. It leaves me feeling slightly dizzy, which is not a good combination with my pain in the brain. I tighten my grip on the Doctor's arm, both for support and for extra warmth as a cool breeze chills my bare shoulders.

In the streets next to us, adorable old-fashioned automobiles chig-chug along.

_I suppose they'd be new-fashioned…_

"The night of October 6th, 1927, about nine o' clock. This is the night of a very important movie premiere. The Earth's first moving picture with sound! You humans are brilliant, you know? Celebrating creativity and advancement at every single chance you get. Hello!" He says, nodding his head at another couple passing us. The man tips his fedora-style hat to us, and the woman smiles sweetly, her short, wavy blonde hair absolutely iconic of the time period. She's dressed just as fancy-shmancy as I am.

The concentration of well-dressed people shoots up as we approach a gigantic marble building, tall and impressive, with triangular peaks that seem to pierce the sky itself.

"The Plaza Hotel," I say, recognizing it from an old movie I remember seeing when I was younger, about an orphan girl not knowing that she's the heiress to some big fortune. It bored me to tears, but I remember The Plaza being in it.

"Site of the after party for the premiere of _The Jazz Singer_. All of these people are here to commemorate the birth of a new era. Can't you just feel the excitement in the air?" He says, taking a deep breath as we approach the door, and I do the same, catching a whiff of something exciting, alright.

_Food. Earth food. Real food!_

The Doctor and I are asked to show our invitations by a stuffy looking guy with a handlebar mustache outside the door. The Doctor rummages around inside his suit jacket to pull out a leather-clad piece of paper. A blank piece of paper, might I add.

"And your name, sir?" the man prompts after taking a look at the piece of paper. The blank piece of paper.

_Should I even question it?_

"Doctor Indiana Jones." He says without missing a single beat. The man then looks at me questioningly.

"I'm uh… Miss Hermione Granger?" I say, my voice lilting up at the end, unintentionally making it a question. The Doctor scoffs loudly in the back of his throat. The man quirks an eyebrow at me, but then turns to walk through the doorway. We follow him, and he pauses at the steps leading down into the reception hall.

"Doctor Indiana Jones and Miss Hermione Granger!" He shouts, his voice booming all through the gigantic, chandeliered room full of glittering people. Once the man turns his back to us, we burst out laughing, jog-hopping down the stairs together in quite an undignified manner.

"Well, Miss Granger, shall we see the festivities of the ball room?" He asks in a purposefully ridiculous and stale voice once we're down the steps, mingling with the crowd of well-to-do's.

"Why, that would be positively swell, Doctor Jones!" I say, putting my hand over my heart, copying his snooty tone. We sweep through a massive arch into a different room. This one is even larger than the previous one, filled to the brim with people and with swaying movement, slow and sweet. An entire orchestra is playing a very legato piece, and people are either dancing or sitting at the tables around the dance floor. Probably talking about money or servants, or whatever it is rich people talk about.

_As dreamy as this is, it is definitely not what I was expecting from a prohibition era party…_

The Doctor seems to be having the same thought, because his nose crinkles up as if downwind of something very unpleasant.

"Well… Isn't this just… so very tame." I say, snatching a little plate of fancy hors-d'oeurves off of a passing waiter's tray. I don't recognize a single thing on the plate besides shrimp. I find myself actually wishing for a drink, feeling as if I might need it if we're going to stay the whole night.

_It's like I'm at a distant aunt's roommate's cousin's wedding reception…_

"No, no this isn't right, not at all! I chose it perfectly, all records describe this party as bombastic, amazing, awe-inspiring!" He says, hopefully not noticing as I pilfer another plate of food.

"Well, maybe if we stay a while, we'll be surprised?" I say, tugging on his arm to lead him over to an empty table.

We sit for a while, and I take the opportunity to people watch. It's all so dazzling, the romantic music combined with the timeless sight of men leading their ladies in dance. Every single woman in this room seems so much more delicate and feminine than I have ever felt in my entire life. They allow their men to sweep them about, following his every move with grace and without hesitation.

_I'd probably screw up every time I so much as blinked if I tried to dance like that._

When I turn my attention back to the Doctor, something green and probably expensive is dropping out of his mouth and back onto the plate they served it on. His face twists in disgust as he wipes his mouth, pushing the plate away from him as if it offends him.

"This is awful." He chokes out, and I smirk at him, unexpected warmth flooding my heart.

_Only I could find spitting out chewed up food endearing._

"Not just the food, if that's what you call that rubbish, this whole thing is awful. Boring and definitely not bombastic!" He says loudly, standing up abruptly. "C'mon, Evy. We can do so much better."

I move to stand up, but a tap on my shoulder stops me. It's one of the waiters.

"You two look a bit young to be up here."

"Oh, well… We uh- Doctor Jones and I know the director of the moving picture. Don't we, Doctor?" I say.

_Not that I would mind getting thrown out at this point._

"Refreshments will be served in the basement, if you're interested…" He says before the Doctor can reply, accentuating his words oddly, giving me a wink. Before I can ask him anything, he's whisking his tray off into the crowd, which, now that he mentions it, does seem a bit 'senior discount eligible' to me.

"Was that some creepy way of coming on to me, or…" I say slowly, not understanding the way the Doctor is smiling at me.

"The basement, of course! I'm getting old and dense, stupid, so stupid!" He says, and a slow grin spreads on my face as I finally understand.

_Prohibition, speak-easies, basement. Got it. _

"What are we waiting for, then?" I say, leaping up from my seat much too fast and nearly twisting my ankle on my stupid heel. I flail my arms as I try to recapture some semblance of balance, the picture of grace and poise, I'm sure.

Out of the blue, a chair whips itself around and plants itself in front of me. I grab it, feeling grateful for its appearance before I realize what had just happened.

My stomach drops and my hands fly up to my face, checking under my eyes. No blood, not yet. I turn to see the Doctor frowning, that familiar self-blaming look in his eyes.

I straighten up, smoothing my dress, giving him a breathless laugh.

"Whoopsies! Clumsy me, words do not describe how much I don't belong in a place as swanky as this!" I say, waving my hand as if it will make the reality of what had just happened disappear. I briefly take note of an older woman gaping at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, before continuing on my way.

"Hi there," I say to her as I brush past, trying to get the attention of one of the waiters.

"Excuse me," I say once I catch up to him, "Can you tell me how to find the basement?"

He politely gives me some directions through the gigantic hotel.

"Got it, through the reception hall, turn left into a hallway, look for room 125." I say, and he nods, giving a quick little bow before bustling off.

We follow his instructions, and after finding the door unlocked for 125, we let ourselves in. It's just an average hotel room, really. Much nicer than I'm used to, to be honest, but nothing out of the ordinary.

"Okay," I say, rubbing my hands together excitedly, "It has to be like one of those old gangster movies. You know, where you have to find a hidden door in the wall, and give the password before they'll let you in!"

I hear the sound of the sonic screwdriver buzzing in place of a reply, and I whip around to smack his hand.

"Hey, what was that for?" He says, rubbing his hand as if I had actually hurt him.

"That was for cheating! None of that," I say, and press my ear against the wall. I begin knocking gently, moving down the length of the wall when I continue to find nothing but solid wall.

Without warning, the door opens and two burly men come through, dressed rather nicely in colorful suits. They give me a strange look, and I extract myself from the wall, muttering half-explanations about hidden doors.

"Already drunk, are ya'?" one of them says, and I let out a derisive little laugh. "Follow us."


	21. A Bombastic Party

The men lead us further and deeper into the hotel's grand winding corridors. So far that I'm quite sure I'd never be able to find my way back to room 125 if my life depended on it.

_Here's hoping it doesn't at any point tonight…_

We come to a pair of mahogany doors, intricately and carefully carved with fleur de lis all over. Behind it, I hear trumpets and cymbals and drums beating out a raucous melody. My heart swells and my lips can't help lifting into a grin. The Doctor nudges me, giving me a wink

"Enjoy, and don't let us catch you not causing trouble." The fairer haired of the two men says with an ill behaved smirk, and he thrusts open the doors.

I have never seen such a busy room in all of my life.

It's a large room, smaller than the ballroom, but large enough to contain the explosion of human beings going on inside of it. Somehow.

Men in suits with adorable coattails spin women in glittering flowing dresses around. Groups of ladies scream in joy, flapping their limbs around without abandon. Drinks are spilled, tossed, downed in single gulps. Even the band is dancing, as if they can't contain their glee either. An entire table is accidentally knocked over in the blissful chaos, and nobody does a single thing but laugh.

As soon as our feet hit the floor of the room, the doors close behind us, and we are a part of this giddy mess. A woman stumbles into me, her nasally laugh grating my eardrums over the music. She just gives me a heavy lidded smile, and shoves a bottle of booze in my hand, before her posse scrambles her back into the fray.

I take a look at the bottle. Some kind of fancy spiced rum. Seems as if she had barely had any of it. I give it a shake and look out into the crowd for some encouragement.

Everyone seems to have no problems, no cares in life. They've simply shaken them off, quite literally. I want to be just like them. I wish I could be half as unconcerned as they are.

_I need to just forget for one hour. Just one measly hour, I can pretend I'm not a lost cause._

I rip the top of the bottle off and take four huge gulps of the burning liquid before it's yanked out of my hands. It sears my throat and warms my stomach, leaving me sputtering and coughing. I never was much of a boozer.

"Alright, that's enough of that." The Doctor says, capping the bottle and handing it off to a man wearing a furry pink boa wrapped around his head.

"Oh, the Doctor doesn't drink? Look around, you crazy alien! It's a party, have a little fun!" I say, laughter bubbling out of me all of the sudden.

"Well, I guess I haven't tried a drink with this mouth yet." He says hesitantly, and as if right on cue, a rather unstable waiter approaches us.

_Someone's been having a taste of his own wares._

"Scotch on the rocks?" he asks, offering the Doctor a glass full of ice and amber colored liquid. He grudgingly takes it, lifting it to his lips, his nose crinkling in distaste. He takes a swig, manages to swallow once before he spits the rest out in a cloud of vaporized alcohol. I half scream, half laugh as some of it mists my bare skin.

"Oh, you are such a child!" I shout, wiping my arm off.

"Excuse me for having taste buds! How can you people drink that stuff? It's poison, literally poison!" He says, yanking the celery off of his suit and jabbing it into his mouth as if it were on fire.

"Whaddya doin' standing still, you couple of duds? Get hopping!" A lady in a purple rhinestone smattered dress says, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the eye of the dancing storm. Quickly, I clutch the Doctor's gray vest and take him along for the ride, still chewing the best part of his outfit.

I watch the purple rhinestone lady and her friends carefully, trying to get a feel for how I should move. Then, I realize that the rule is there is no rules. You just move, simply move. I realize now why their dresses are short, as my flailing feet keep getting caught in my striking gold train. All of the flappers around me are yelling encouragement as I get into the groove of it.

"You two just friends or is he giving you the absent treatment, doll?" A red-haired, green clad woman asks me.

"Complicated," I shout over the music, and look over my shoulder to see the Doctor with his hands in his pockets, swaying awkwardly but smiling at all the happy humans around him.

"Well, give him your knee, maybe things will get much less complicated," purple rhinestone says, puckering her blood red lips.

"Give him my what?" I say, fumbling a bit and halting my frenzied dancing.

"Dance with him, cotton for ears!" She says, pushing me towards the Doctor, and I run into his chest face-first. He catches me, dropping the scotch in his hand and it shatters with a muted crash. No one seems to care, sharp glass or not. I look up to meet his molten gold eyes.

"Hello there," He says, and I hide behind my hair, hoping it's just the rum making my cheeks burn.

"So, Doctor… Do Time Lords dance?" I say, and he gives me a flat look.

"I have seen thousands of timelines across eons, I am a Time Lord, my species is billions of years old and I have lived 90 decades worth of knowledge and scholasticism…"

I blink, feeling a bit stupid and frivolous.

"Plenty of time for this crazy alien to learn some crazy moves!" He says, grabbing my waist and spinning me around, my dress twirling out around me. The room spins, too.

_Okay, so I can't hold my alcohol as well as I'd like to think. So what._

I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. He went from awkward to amazing at the speed of light. He flings us around the room, leading me over and under and around, weaving through and bumping into other couples.

"Doctor, Doctor, hold on!" I laugh as he lifts me up to swing me around. He plants me firmly on my feet, then, and grins at me.

"Some of us are only human. Need a breather," I say, blinking hard as my vision blurs considerably. He seems to notice, and laughs, leading me out of the gaggle of drunken dancers.

"Stay here, don't move, I'm going to go get us a few waters… Assuming they have anything not drowning in alcohol." He says, and starts pushing his way to the bar on the other side of the room.

I move my weight from foot to foot, starting to wish for some nice fuzzy slippers right about now.

A strong hand suddenly grips my arm, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

_The Doctor doesn't know his own strength!_

But when I turn to scold him for startling me, a face I surely do not recognize is staring at my own, eyes blank through the blur in my vision. It's a man, a tall one, with blonde hair and striking red eyes. He's dressed nicely, but something is off. The cut of the suit is so very modern looking, out of place in this old world.

_And red eyes are never a good sign._

"Report. The weapon of mass destruction is primed and secure. Returning to The Revenant."

"Listen here pal. You're going to let go of me or things are going to get real interesting in about five seconds." I say, tripping and slurring over a few of my words, trying to jerk my arm out of his grip. I can feel his fingers leaving bruises.

He says nothing, and begins to walk towards the mahogany doors. His hand doesn't even budge a centimeter when I claw at it with my nails. I yell for the Doctor, and I see a few people being thrust out of the way to reveal a wide-eyed Time Lord. He starts to sprint after us, and when he reaches us, he takes one look at the man's empty red eyes, then dumps both waters on him.

I see a few sparks leap out of the man's nose, and then he focuses his attention on the Doctor. His other freakishly strong hand flashes up to grip the Time Lord's throat, lifting him effortlessly.

"Threat de- detected. Thre- Threat detected." He stutters, and the Doctor tries to pry the man's fingers from around his throat, choking slowly.

"Stop it, just stop it!" I scream, lifting my fist with intent to slugger him so hard, he'll have to let the Doctor go. But there's no need, because as soon as my fist closes, the man is gone. Dissolved into a billion, microscopic, golden particles, floating up to the ceiling. Just like that, the Doctor drops to the floor, and the man is gone.

Everyone in the party lets out a delighted shout, thinking it must be confetti or fireworks of some sort.

"Evy, look at me, are you okay?"

The Doctor is on his feet instantly, checking me for injuries. His eyes narrow upon seeing the bruise blossoming on my arm in the shape of a very large hand.

"I killed him," I whisper, a few tears slipping out from my eyes. When I wipe them away, red stains my hands.

"No, it wasn't a human, not even a life-form. That was a FACE, a robot designed to camouflage itself as the indigenous species. C'mon, we're getting out of here."

"He called me a weapon of mass destruction." I say, more red tears falling, and I duck my head to hide them, hoping no one will notice. The Doctor puts his arm around me, helping to shield me from curious eyes.

"Told you it would uncomplicate itself, doll!" I hear as we push through the mahogany doors, and into the winding halls of the Plaza.


	22. The King of Kleo

When we reach the T.A.R.D.I.S, the Doctor immediately starts typing on the console, leaping around it like an over-excited monkey. I try to calm down through my tipsy tears, and excuse myself to walk to the bathroom, rubbing the ache in my arm. Splashing cold water on my face helps a little, and when I look into the mirror, instead of seeing my face, I see a lie being exposed for what it truly is.

My makeup runs down my face, mingling with the last of my bloody tears. My hair is a poofy mess, the perfect curls ruined from all the dancing and excitement. My dress has drops of blood all along the neckline, probably ruining it forever. Bitterness boils my veins.

_I was lying to myself, getting all gussied up, pretending things were fine. And this is what it looks like when the truth is told. Yes, this is the truth, blood and tears. The inevitability of my death is the truth. I can't do anything. I can't even lie to myself. I don't even get that comfort._

The mirror suddenly cracks as if someone extremely strong had punched it right in the center. The sink shakes under my hands, and I leap back in surprise.

I take a deep breath, concentrating on cleaning my face up, trying to focus on keeping myself calm, clean of emotion.

_Quite a feat when you're still slightly inebriated…_

I go back into the console room to see what the Doctor has been tic-tacking away about, and now he's just sitting on the stool, talking out loud to himself.

"… so far from the manufacturing planet, they had to have been bought or rented for this purpose. Someone has to be looking for us, no, not us, for Evy. Someone wants… you." He says, noticing me coming back in, and his eyes darken with a mix of determination and anger.

"Someone wants you, and that little weapon of mass destruction in your brain. But who? Who would need to buy out FACE units, a tactic stealthy enough to not capture our attention too early, but not stealthy enough to remain hidden for long. Who knows how long they've been tailing us? Oh, I really am getting old, Evy."

I lean on the railing next to him, crossing my arms, feeling the said weapon throbbing in my head.

"Sounds expensive." I say, and he leaps up to cup my face between his hands.

"Expensive!" He shouts, his hands leaving my face to run through his hair. "Oh, you're brilliant, you are!"

He then starts to push buttons and throw levers, and I step away from the console as he does his thing.

"Yes, I know I am, but why?"

He turns to look at me, the combination of fury and glee in his gold eyes making him look absolutely mad.

"You've reminded me of an old friend that I think is due for a visit," He says, then shoves a knob into the console, sending us careening into the vortex. Once the room is still again, he jumps up to practically kick the T.A.R.D.I.S doors open, and I scurry to follow him.

We've landed in a gigantic room, made of black marble, with gold accents. The design of some kind of octopus creature is laid in gold in the center of the room. The air feels thick with moisture, as if we are near an ocean. Gold curtains high on the ceiling sit stagnant in the muggy air.

Someone… Something is sitting on a very elaborate throne at the end of the long room. It looks like the insignia of the octopus-thing, only as if the octopus were its entire head. The body is shockingly human in appearance, besides the color, a sallow blue-gray. Many of the creatures surround the one on the throne, apparently doting upon its every whim.

The Doctor strides down the length of the room, the embodiment of the silence before the storm.

"Well, if it weren't for that ridiculous blue box of yours, I would never have recognized you, Doctor! A nice regeneration, this time! What brings you to Kleo, hopefully just the passing fancy for a visit? How long has it been, nearly twenty five years! Nothing to you, I'm sure." The octopus man says from his throne, not even bothering to stand as the Doctor approaches him like a train off the tracks. His voice is like water over sand, slithering and cold.

"What are you up to, Ruth?" The Doctor says.

I snort with the effort to keep from laughing at that, clamping a hand over my mouth.

_Ruth? The king is named Ruth? Oh, that is rich._

The creature, Ruth, notices. His little face tentacles writhe angrily.

"And you've got a new, oh, what does everyone call them… Companion! This one's a bit of a fixer-upper if you ask me. Well dressed, but too scraggily."

I scowl at him, and he scowls back, like a child.

"I'll ask one more time, what are you up to? I've had a little run in with a FACE unit, a very expensive FACE unit, from your time period and galaxy. We were on Earth, in a completely different time, meaning it had to have been transported there with some effort. You're the only one within a hundred trillion miles who can afford that sort of thing, so why don't you cut the small talk and tell me what you want with my Evy."

I raise my eyebrows at that, my stomach doing a little flip.

_My Evy?_

The Doctor slams his hands on the arms of the black throne, causing Ruth to press himself against the back in fear. The servants gasp and scamper away, every quick movement of the Doctor's inspiring fear in them as well.

"I learned my lesson last time, Doctor. I wouldn't dream of crossing you again." He says, a tentacle gently tapping the Doctor's face, causing him to straighten up, his predatory gaze never leaving Ruth.

"Maybe, but not if it meant you'd win the Kleo-Trinifare war. Oh no, it's been raging all your life, you've got no limits when it comes to that! I learned my lesson last time, too." The Doctor says, and I try to wrap my head around what the heck is going on.

_Okay, so the Doctor has already dealt with this planet once, in a previous regeneration._

_They must have done something very drastic, and he must have stopped them. _

_He thinks that Ruth the octopus has something to do with the robot I killed._

_Ruth is very rich._

_Ruth is in a war with some planet called Trinifare._

_Ruth is desperate._

_Ruth is still a hilarious name for the king of Kleo. _

I finally reach the throne, stepping up slowly, considerably less intimidatingly than the Doctor had.

"Sorry, hi, my name is Evy, I'm a human, I'm the one your FACE unit attacked-"

"I have bought no FACE units, none, I tell you! This is an outrage, waltzing into my throne room at supper, accusing me of producing weapons of mass destruction-"

"We never accused you of that." The Doctor says, his voice deadly soft. Ruth blanches, or at least the octopus version of it. He swallows quickly.

"No? You might as well be! An army of FACE units, how absurd! If I want to destroy the Trinifarians once and for all, there are less wasteful ways of doing so." He replies, his voice calm, not betraying the panic in his foreign, square eyes.

The Doctor remains silent for so long that even I get uncomfortable. He just glares at Ruth, emanating fury. Then, all of the sudden, he shoves his hands into his pockets, and takes a few steps back from the throne.

"Then you won't mind if we stay a bit? The T.A.R.D.I.S needs to charge, we'll be gone before bedtime." The Doctor says, his tone demanding, not asking permission.

"Of course! I was hoping you'd agree to stay, so much has changed since you last came to Kleo. We've even upgraded the Harbor of Hadra to include zero gravity water slides. Such fun." Ruth says, his eyes burning with hatred for the Doctor.

The Doctor nods, and turns on his heel, taking my hand as he passes me. We head for a narrow hallway to our left, and I gaze up in amazement. Through the clear substance that the hallway was built from, the ocean can be seen. We can't be too far down, because light streams through the water, illuminating strange creatures of all shapes and sizes, jetting through the deep blue.

After a moment, I notice a tiny bright yellow creature, shaped like an itty bitty manatee only with webbed feet, swimming next to us, bumping it's adorable face against the glass. I take my hand out of the Doctor's to stop and look at it.

"Aww, what are you doin' little-"

The minute I raise my finger up to it, it seems to explode in size, gigantic fins springing out of it's tiny back, sharp and deadly. Fangs spring from its jaw, and it rams the glass, trying to bite my finger. I snatch my hand back in surprise, a crack forming in the glass. I'm not sure who did it, me or the tiny killer manatee…

"Even the most harmless of creatures can evolve to be killers…" The Doctor says, and I quickly take his hand again, letting him lead me further into this strange situation we've found ourselves in.


	23. The Truth Will Set You Free

Some servants intercept us and lead the way to a completely transparent room. Even the floor is see-through, and it's so disorienting I have to keep my eyes from straying down. There are odd piles of mushy looking sponges situated around a pool of water.

_No, it's a hole in the floor. A literal hole in the floor._

I lean over it, pondering dipping my foot into it. Then I remember my tiny yellow friend, and think twice.

The Doctor flops down onto one of the piles of sponge, keeping an eye on the servants until they leave the room, promising to bring us refreshments.

"No time to lose, we've got to investigate," He says just as I follow his lead, throwing myself into one of the sponges.

"You've been here before." I prompt, expecting him to elaborate. He just gestures for me to get up, and quickly.

"Yes, now c'mon! We haven't got much time before those servants get back and report to Ruth that we're missing."

I huff, struggling out of the mushy grip of the sponge and following him out of the disconcerting glass room.

"What did Ruth do last time you met? He seems to hate you… Not that you seem any fonder of him."

"The king of Kleo grew up in the war against the Tinifarians, a war now fueled by hatred, lasting for hundreds of years. He'd lost any compassion for living things long before I met him and... Ruth was stealing the youth from other planets, less advanced planets, and training them, brainwashing them, to be the perfect soldier. He even went so far as to assign his top scientists to the job of finding a way to genetically alter these poor children, make them stronger, faster, more easily commanded." He says, his face falling with something like regret. "It went on for years before I found out. I couldn't save them all, but I could put a stop to it. Permanently."

I frown, imagining little kids being put through such an ordeal. Losing their families and their freedom in a single day, living for years like slaves, losing their originality…

_A true nightmare_.

"How'd you do it?" I ask, and he shrugs.

"Sent out a distress signal that went out thousands of billions of miles into space, to every single planet who might have been involved… And blew up the entire Harbor of Hadra, their science complex and barracks." He pauses, as if wanting to say something else, but must think better of it, because he continues on without another word.

_Well, that doesn't seem very Doctor-ish… A lot of these Kleo octopus people must have died in those explosions. Not to mention some other parts of this underwater city probably collapsed…_

"Oh... Well, I'm sure there was no other way to make sure they'd stop for sure." I say, he shakes his head, leading me up a winding circular staircase of black marble.

"I could have just let the parent planets deal with Ruth, let justice serve itself. But I was so very angry, and travelling so very alone. Sometimes, I make mistakes when I travel alone. Big mistakes."

"But you saved all of those kids. That's something far from a mistake in my book," I say, trying my best to alleviate at least a bit of the guilt I feel in him. He just pauses to look at me for a moment, his eyes slowly brightening as they rove my features.

"C'mon, we've got to get to the Harbor of Hadra before Ruth realizes we're snooping. That means we still have two flights of stairs and a mile long bridge to cross. Think you're up for a jog?" He says, his lips turning up at the corners ever so slightly. I answer by taking off ahead of him, hoping to beat him in a race just once before I die.

* * *

Turns out it's impossible to beat a Time Lord in a foot race. He has literally been waiting for me at the end of the ocean bridge, leaning against a metal door casually as if we weren't on a time crunch.

"About time, thought you'd gotten lost!" He says, grinning that cheeky grin I love and hate so much.

"You cheat, you always cheat!" I breathe, rolling my eyes at him, "Your cardiovascular and respiratory systems are twice as efficient as mine."

"True. Very true!" He says, looking pleased with himself, "Ready to do some research?"

He sonics the door and we slip inside once its open. All I really see around us are large cylindrical tubes, mounted on the floor in rows of four. Lab tables line the walls. Each tube has something different in it. One tube has some sort of really big gun, with more guns attached to the top and sides. Another has a few of the bright ocean animals I had seen earlier, suspended in a murky liquid. They don't move or swim around. In fact, I think they're…

"Doctor, are they-"

"I'm afraid so. Animal testing is universal, unfortunately."

I frown, pressing my hand up against one of the tubes.

The sound of the door opening causes the Doctor and me to duck behind a black marble lab table.

"Look, I know it's just you and I here, but we have to perfect it, tonight. Ruth was adamant. He says that if we don't have it tonight, we might as well surrender to the Trinifarians." A voice says, slithery like the king's had been.

"I get that patient zero is here, and all, but in one night? We still need to stabilize the energy converters, reverse the-"

"I know, but we have to try. For Kleo."

"For Kleo." A few metallic 'tings' accompany their voices.

I give the Doctor a puzzled look.

_Patient zero? If Ruth alerted them about us, they could be talking about one of two people. The Doctor, and me. _

"I still have doubts that this will even work. I mean, a human's mind is an unpredictable thing. You know how primitive they are. She's ripe, but did it develop correctly?"

"I guess we'll find out tonight."

The door opens and closes again, from the opposite side of the room.

_They went further into the Hadra complex then. We've got to follow them._

"This is not good. Evy, I am putting the pieces together, and it is not good," The Doctor whispers, and when I look at him, his lips are pressed tightly together in thought, "You're patient zero. Obviously. And they seem to know a lot about your… condition."

"Yeah, they do. I mean, you said they could have been following us for quite a long time without us knowing."

"Yes, but calling you patient zero, saying you're ripe, it implies involvement from the beginning…" He says, standing up from behind the table, and starting to walk to the door that the scientists had left through.

"What, you're saying they caused all of this? My tumor? My migraine?" I say, my voice getting progressively louder, until the Doctor reaches out to put a hand over my mouth. I scowl at him, and lick his hand, making sure to make it really gross and wet. He just stares at me, an eyebrow raised.

_Funny, that always worked when I was little._

I resort to yanking his hand off of my mouth.

"I'm okay, I'm fine, I won't yell... Much." I say, and he sonics the door to let us through. It's a very dark room, and in the center are the scientists, wearing masks over their octopus heads. One seems to be welding something with wires dangling from it onto the machine. The other is fiddling with a big pulsing circular light on the other side. Luckily, the noise of the welding keeps them from noticing our intrusion. We keep to the darkness for so long that I wish we could just jump out and interrogate them already.

_Things would go so much quicker if we did it my way._

"Atomic transfer reversed successfully, how's the converter coming along?" The welder says, and the other one sighs.

"Nearly functional."

"Good, because any second now, the king is going to-"

As if right on cue, the king and four of what seems to be his body guards sweep into the room.

"It's finished, tell me it's finished. Because if it isn't, I'll have both of you thrown into the Deep Reef, on my Royal Father's name." Ruth says, his voice booming in the dark room. The scientists mutter under their breath for a moment, exchanging glances uneasily.

"What was that?" The king says, raising one slimy blue-gray hand and the guards raise some of the guns I had seen in the other room to point at the scientists.

"It's finished, sire! Ready for use!" One of them says, its voice squeaking in fear. Anger boils up in me at the sight of the guns pointed at the unarmed scientists.

_Bullying at its damn finest._

"That's what I thought. Good, now all we need is the human, and this everlasting war will be no more. At last."

"You mean me? You need me?" I say, unable to stand back anymore. The Doctor lets out a groan and stands up with me.

_I have all the brute force I need to put this bully down. More than enough, actually._

"Oh, my esteemed guests! What perfect timing! You're so punctual, you time travelers."

"We're really not." The Doctor says.

The king chuckles, waving his hand, and the guards point the guns at us now, advancing slowly.

"Go ahead and try, boys. If your king did to me what I think he did, then you know exactly what I'm capable of." I say, trying my best to keep my breathing even and my emotions in check. Wouldn't want to accidentally blow up Hadra again, would we?

The guards falter, their square eyes sizing me up carefully, guns still pointed at us.

"Well, I always like to warn them first," I say, and relief momentarily flows through me as I tap into the building ball of energy in my brain. The four barreled guns yank themselves from the guards' hands, flying across the room and shattering against the wall. The atoms of the guns dissolve, just like the FACE unit, floating to the top of the dark domed room.

Two of the guards high tail it out of here, the other two move to stand in front of their king.

_Admirable, but not advisable._

"Evy, that's enough. Please." The Doctor's concerned voice pleads from behind me as I make my way towards the king.

_I guess it is a bit concerning that everything I use the energy on is now dissolving into nothingness…_

"I hear you like genetic experimentation on children, innocent little children." I say, and the marble floor under the guards crackles and in the blink of an eye, has taken them to the other side of the room. The marble blocks dissolve, elegantly coating the guards in atomic dust. The scientists take the opportunity to flee the room.

"So I'd be willing to guess you'd have no issue mutating the brain of an 18 year old human girl. No issue at all." I say, planting myself so close to the king that I can smell the tangy salt of his sallow skin.

"Evy, you've got to stop, he's not worth it. Let's just get out of here, okay?" The Doctor says, and I feel him grip my shoulder lightly. I place my own trembling hand on his, giving him a silent apology.

Metal from the door rips itself from the frame, screeching across the marble floor towards the king and me. The Doctor jumps out of the way as the metal wraps itself around us, and with much effort, I keep it from disintegrating. The king lets out a little yelp of terror. I feel a trickle beneath my right eye, and even my nose, but I can't stop now. Not when I'm so close to answers.

"You did this to me." I say, and the king quakes under my gaze.

"Evy! Just stop, you can't change what's been done! Don't make the same mistake I did! Don't you dare!" The Doctor yells and he starts to pound his fists on the metal.

"I gave the order, I mean, it was nothing personal. The Organic Nuclear Fission Arc Reactor needs a living host, stable neurons to function within. I was told a human brain would be the perfect-"

"Why me?" I interrupt him, clenching the metal walls closer around us. He emits a pathetic sob when I heat his side of our little metal cocoon.

"You were just in the right place, I swear! We landed in a secluded spot, searching for a human to plant the Reactor in, and you were just sitting there!" The king says, beginning to shake in earnest.

"Evy, you'll kill yourself if you keep going!"

"Three years ago is when this started," I say, pointing angrily to my head, "November… My freshman year of college."

I think back to all the lonely times I had made my way to the forest to think, to feel a part of something. Especially once the migraines began.

_Funny how my greatest solace ended up being my greatest downfall in the end. _

"Is there a way to get rid of it? For me to live." I say, heating the metal until it glows red, illuminating his horrified expression. My entire head starts to ache and the trickle beneath my eyes and nose becomes less of a drip and more of a flow.

"Yes! Yes, all you need to do is hook yourself up to that machine, and-"

"Liar!" I say, and the metal screams as it presses in even further. The scalding hot material sizzles the king's skin, and he lets out a yelp.

"No, please! Just let me show you! Just let me show you! Please, don't kill me!" He shouts, and I thrust the metal away from us. It immediately dissolves into millions upon millions of gold dust particles.

He falls to my feet, shivering, and I turn to look at the Doctor. He shakes his head, the gold atoms illuminating the sadness on his face.

"Evy…" He says, and sweeps me into a crushing hug. I'm glad for the support, in more ways than one. I feel so very weak now, so very emotionally drained, too.

"I'm sorry. I had to." I murmur, pulling away to wipe the blood from my face. My hands drip with it, but it doesn't even bother me anymore.

"Explain the machine, _King_ Ruth." I say, and he cowers as I walk towards him, scrambling to his feet in front of the machine.

"The idea was to control the flow of the electrical activity in the brain, effectively allowing us to tap into the reserve of atomic energy the Reactor was producing. You can do the same thing, obviously!" He laughs nervously. I just scowl at him.

"Once we did that, with this contraption," he holds up what looks like some kind of helmet, "We could reverse the flow into a reservoir, pooling it for use on the Trinifarians. Once the source of the atomic splitting has been siphoned, it should cease, so-"

"Why not just use nuclear plants like everyone else in the damn universe?" I shout, and a large crack opens up in the floor running from my feet to the king's, water shooting up in little spouts. A wave of vertigo shoots through me and I sway a little, clenching my fists.

"You produce the amount of energy in one second that a plant produces in ten years." He shouts, stumbling back into the machine. "I'm sorry, but if you just hook up to this machine, it'll all go away. You can live!"

"You'd say anything to get your way, Ruth." The Doctor says, and I look at him.

"Will it work? Is there even a chance?" I ask, and I see pain in those lovely, sad, gold eyes of his.

"Might. Those scientists were obviously not finished with it, though, Evy. It's risky, so very risky."

"It'll also give him the power he needs to destroy the Trinifarians." I say, defeat slowly seeping into my heart, nausea rising in my stomach.

"And the 23 neighboring planets of Trinifare." The Doctor adds.

That seals it. I decide then and there to give up.

_This is it. This is really it._


	24. Everybody Knows That Everybody Dies

**A/N**

**Hello Whovians! **

**I think we're coming to a close here, in a few chapters, just giving you a heads up. **

**I just wanted to thank , llythia Major, sherlockedbyben, d0ct0rwh0l0ckf4n, Bookgeek890, and Pepper for the reviews! I had so much fun continuing this story over the past few weeks, and I owe it to you guys for encouraging me to keep going! Much love :) **

**Onward!**

* * *

I let out a breath, and then drop to my knees in the rushing water. The water soaks my lovely gold dress, ruining it even further, but I'm far past caring about the status of my clothing. My skull feels as if someone is pumping it full of air, like a living balloon.

"Evy? Evy, just keep your mind going, think of anything worth thinking about, anything at all." The Doctor says, crouching in front of me. I just smile, and reach down to cup some water in my shaking hands. I splash it on my face, and repeat a few times until the blood is mostly gone. The salt water tastes foul, somehow more chemical than water.

"I'm okay. It's okay." I say to no one in particular, rubbing my hands in the water, watching the blood run off of them in the dim light. The Doctor gently picks them up, and I wrap my fingers around his, my lip trembling.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Evy." He says and the impossible happens. A tear escapes from one of his eyes, forging a pathway down his cheek. It nearly undoes any semblance of self-control that I have, that lone tear.

"What's this? The fearsome Time Lord crying over me? Well, that's no good," I say, reaching up to swipe it off of his cheek, that simple action causing me to feel faint.

"You don't deserve to go like this... Helpless, a victim of bad luck. That's not you, that is so far from Evelyn Crenshaw." He says, shaking his head, his voice like a looming thunderhead. A smile ghosts upon my lips.

"We were going to do it all, Doctor. You and I, we were going to have adventures to last hundreds of lifetimes." I say, feeling myself losing control of my own body. "That's enough for me."

I can't feel the pain in my head anymore.

_Probably a very bad sign…_

He just shuffles over to me, as if he can sense that I'll be unable to hold myself up much longer. I relax into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He wraps himself around me as if it might protect me from death.

"What will they do to you when I'm gone?" I say, my voice sounding like a whisper on the wind. Far-away and scattered. Over the Doctor's shoulder, I can see the king cowering in the growing puddle of water, watching us with an unfathomable look in his eyes.

_I hope it's regret, and despair that I see. I hope he knows himself to be a monster now._

"Don't you worry about me. I'm always alright." He murmurs, stroking my hair and nestling his head against mine, his sideburns tickling my cheek. I frown and my hands clutch his black suit where they rest on his chest.

"Someone always has to worry about you, Doctor. You don't get to be the person you are and not have someone worrying about you... Loving you." I say, and his breathing quickens a bit, his arms tightening around me.

"This isn't right. I can't just let you drain away like this, burn up inside your own head. It isn't right, this is not right!" He says, progressively getting louder until he is shouting in my ear. He suddenly moves to lay me on the watery ground and bounds over to the machine, whipping out the sonic.

"I still mean it, you know! What I said when you warned me about the danger. I still mean it," I say as loud as I can, even the muscles used to speak failing on me. I need to know he won't blame himself when I'm gone.

_"If it's dangerous, if I lose my life, it will all have been worth it. It will have been exactly what I wanted from life, right up until it ends."_

"Oh, I remember. And you were wrong. I know you, Evy. I know that you've got a wandering soul like mine, and I know you would never want it to end, especially like this."

He starts kicking a part of the machine until it breaks off, leaving wires exposed and sparking.

"And neither do I!" He shouts, leaping to the other side of the machine, yanking pipes off of it.

"Oh, Ruth, you sly little viper, you did lie, didn't you? This machine not only siphons the atomic energy, it overloads on it, effectively creating a super-powered atomic bomb! And teleports it to pre-set coordinates. Trinifare!" He shouts, using the sonic on a keypad.

"Admittedly, this is brilliant, but I'm so much cleverer than any of your little henchmen." He says, pausing to give the king a murderous glare. "I suggest you run, Ruth. Run and get your people far away from Hadra, because this time around, it's going to get very messy."

The king doesn't move for a second, just blinking stupidly at the Doctor.

"Now!" The Doctor thunders, and the king scrambles in the water, slipping and sliding his way to the empty door frame, whimpering pathetically. Immediately, the Doctor leaps back to work. I watch him for a moment, affection swelling my heart. Impossibly, a glimmer of hope begins to grow in my dying brain.

_Maybe he can do it. Maybe he could save me._

All of the sudden, it's as if electricity is coursing through my body. I struggle to control the convulsions as a seizure rips its way through my limbs. My lungs freeze their natural rhythm.

_Really not a good sign. Really bad._

"You have got to hold on, just for one more minute, Evy. Don't you give up on me, I can do this!" I hear the Doctor's muffled shouts, and I decide now would be a good time to take his advice. To think of anything worth thinking about, to keep my failing brain working.

I think of packing in my dorm, preparing to take the freedom I've always wanted from life. The unadulterated joy I had felt.

I think of the Doctor, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the T.A.R.D.I.S, munching on a cheeseburger.

I think about my mud-slathered hand holding the sonic, causing a three-story tall spider to recoil as if I were a giant.

I think of the searing pain of the Doctor's lips on mine, giving his last moment to me.

I think of how he had looked at me in that desert, fully believing that I could do the impossible.

I think about that glorious hour of normalcy, dancing our cares away in the oh-so-roaring 20's.

I think of how I'm more alive in my last moments than I ever could have hoped.

_All thanks to this madman, this crazy alien, who refuses to accept death as a worthy opponent._

The seizure releases its iron grip on me, and I relax, sucking air in through my lips gratefully. I can't see too far past what's right in front of me now. My vision blurs in and out with my frenzied heart. All I really register is my hair flowing in the rising water, like black seaweed enveloping me.

_Or maybe the robes of the Grim Reaper. Either one._

"You'll see me again Doctor. Later on. It's okay," I murmur, and I hear more metallic clanking noises, feet splashing through water.

"Not good enough. I want to see you tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that! Besides, the dying moments of my regeneration? That's much too morbid for a reunion, don't you think?" I hear his muffled voice, and it's much closer this time. Hands lift me out of the water, and sit me down against the whirring metal of the machine. I see his face close to mine in the light that the machine gives off, and his eyes are wide, full of anticipation and uncertainty.

"If it… doesn't work-" I say, having to really focus on keeping my eyes open. They feel heavy, like they're being pulled closed.

"It has to. It will. Trust me, I'm a doctor," He says, and puts the helmet contraption on my head. I mean to laugh, but it just comes out as an amused little hum.

"You're... such a ham." I mutter before I hear the buzz of the sonic, and light erupts all around me. Even through the metal of the helmet, I can see light flooding the room, every single crevice of it. The machine makes a distressing clunking noise, and bumps against my back rather violently.

"OH, YES!"


	25. Karma

My heart beats slowly, soothingly. Coupled with the slow recession of light from the room, closing my eyes seems more and more attractive as I continue to fade. The machine bumps me more violently until I vaguely feel hands lifting me again. Holding me securely.

I manage to gather enough strength to open my eyes. The Doctor has me pressed against his body, bouncing me in his arms as he runs, looking over his shoulder. His nostrils flare in distress. A bead of sweat rolls down his face. His eyes are absolutely on fire, alight with the adrenaline I know he loves so much. He notices me gazing at him after a moment, and his mouth moves as though shouting. All I hear is silence, a delectable absence of sound. All of my senses are like this, as if padded with fluffy cotton, lifting me slowly out of consciousness. The Doctor's eyes dart from me to the floor in front of him, and he shouts again. I blink quickly, trying my best to read his lips through the fog in my eyes.

_Stay. With. Me._

My eyelids collapse, as if holding them open for that long was much too troublesome for my body to handle. I float blissfully in that darkness, my senses dulled to the point of pleasure. It's the feeling of running your hands over still, lukewarm water. The lull of a breeze caressing your face as sunlight kisses it. It's the sensation of fire-warmed gloves on freezing fingers. Simple contentment, corporeal and tangible.

My blessed prison is disturbed, almost as if the entire universe itself is being jarred. I open my eyes to see that I am no longer in the arms of the Doctor. I'm on a black marble floor, in a familiar throne room. Cracks are opening up in the floor, water gushing out of them in geysers. Some sort of golden fire is licking at the gilded curtains, marble chunks are falling from the vaulted ceiling. I see the Doctor, then. He's laying several feet from me, taking his sweet time rolling himself to his feet. Vibrations of the floor against my cheek tell me that the machine is finally overloading, exploding with three years of pent up atomic energy.

A cut has opened up on The Doctor's forehead, and his black suit is charred all over, holes having been burnt into it all over his back. The gold fire licks at his heels, spreading from the transparent hallway that we had taken to Hadra. It threatens to engulf him, to reduce him to golden dust. My hand, sprawled in front of me, extends towards the Doctor, and some water lifts itself to extinguish the strange gold fire before it reaches the Doctor's feet. My breath comes short, and my eyes become so very heavy again.

_Can still manipulate._

My thoughts roll through my brain like thick pudding. Nothing is making sense as it should. I can't tell if it's death that is embracing me or if it's life, begging me not to give in.

The Doctor staggers to his feet, his face contorted in pain.

_My eyes._

I struggle to maintain my current state of awareness, but I'm fading fast now. I see the Doctor struggling my way, his now scuffed dress shoes pausing in front of me.

_So tired._

* * *

I open my eyes and inhale the crisp air gratefully. The sky stretches as far as my eyes can see, the clearest and bluest I have ever seen it in all my 19 years. Mountains roll forever into the distance, their green depths holding secrets I feel I have to know.

I flop back onto the rocks, using my backpack for a head rest. My legs shake, my back is screaming in pain, and my lungs feel about ready to pop, but I feel like the luckiest human on Earth.

_Who else gets to see something like this, right in their back yard?_

"I just climbed a mountain," I mutter under my breath, sitting up to take the view in again, and again. The sun is now high in the sky, a beacon of warmth in the chilled air. It seems to stand vigil proudly over its many mountains.

_Who could ever get enough of this?_

"I just climbed a mountain!" I shout, and my voice seems to die in the vastness that lays before me, on the nonexistent wind. Up here it's so dead silent that no sound could possibly travel through the void of it. No birds have ventured this far up the mountain to tweet. No people to be seen. Nothing to ruin this moment.

This is it. This is what I've been searching for. This feeling, of freedom, of knowing myself to be worthwhile.

_I'm so glad I got to do this again._

I stand up to stretch out my sore muscles. 16 miles of hiking and climbing over snow, mud, and ice can make you pretty sore.

_Wait… Again? Since when have I already climbed a mountain? This is definitely the only time I have done anything like this. Why…_

I shake my head, as if doing so will dismiss this thought that troubles me more than it should. I begin to sift through my backpack to find the honey peanut butter sandwich I had made myself. I scarf it down in a matter of seconds, ravenous after all the effort it took to get up here. I down half of my second water bottle, grudgingly forbidding myself to finish it.

_I'll definitely need it at the bottom, given I don't slip and plunge thousands of feet to my death._

The thought sends a sick shiver of excitement down my spine.

"Evelyn? Evelyn Crenshaw, right?"

I turn, my heart leaping into my throat stupidly. The person whose voice beckoned me surprises me. A boy from my Calculus II class, Cole. Surprising because he's so very attractive and so very charming. Also surprising because I'm in the library, where I go specifically to not be found.

I can feel my cheeks heating.

"Yeah, hi." I say, my hands smoothing my hair as if they have a mind of their own.

"Hey, I'm Cole, we have Calculus together?" He says, sitting down at the table I have all of my books sprawled over. I rush to clear a space for him.

"Right, yeah! Most def. What's the word- what's up?" I say, silently cursing myself for the awkward that I know is about to pour out of my mouth.

"How are you?" He asks, his blue eyes sparkling. I laugh nervously, and it's then that I remember why I came here. To be by myself and avoid situations where I end up shattering the illusion I have going that I'm the quiet but sophisticated and mysterious one. Quite like this situation.

"I'm uh… Yeah, I'm perfect. Well by perfect, I mean like my day has…"

_Please just kill me. And quickly, so I can maintain at least some dignity._

"I'm good." I finally grate out through my too-wide smile after he just gives me a pointed look.

"Well, great! I'm glad!" He says, smiling as if amused. It makes me relax a little, thinking that maybe he just thinks I'm funny. Maybe he just noticed me, and wants to talk?

"Yeah, so can I, uh… Did you need something?" I say slowly, and he nods quickly.

"Right! Well, I noticed you're doing really awesome in Calculus," he says, and immediately the hope I'd not even known had been there is crushed. He just wants me to do his homework for him. He doesn't want to talk or get to know me, or anything like that.

_This time, just get up and leave. Don't help the vulture with his homework, let him use someone else._

I watch him as he snatches my calculus textbook from in front of me, and flips through it. He's trying to flatter me, get me to practically do his homework for him.

_**This time**… Something is not right. I've already done all of this._

"This is wrong." I say, my eyes darting around the library and I notice some very concerning details. The edges of the library are… colorless, blurry. The librarian walks between aisles, and when she turns to look at me, her face is a swirl of meaningless gray and white scribbles.

"Stealing is wrong, Evelyn Anne." I hear my mother's voice, and suddenly I am in a grocery store. A disgruntled man in a blue uniform is scowling at me. He has orange hair, and pimples all over his corpulent face. My mother is apologizing profusely, her expression flustered, but angry. She turns to me, her blue eyes icy, and holds out her hand.

"Now give it back and say you're sorry." She commands, and I just stare at the man through my little lashes. He scowls deeper at me.

"It's mean to frown at people." I say, slapping the little electronic toy into my mom's hand and giving the man a nasty scowl of my own. My mom gasps.

"Evelyn Anne! Apologize now, or you are grounded for a month! Apologize for stealing from this man!"

The man in blue smirks, raising his bushy eyebrows at me expectantly.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Evy."

That was not my voice. That was the Doctor's.

"Well, little girl?" The man in blue says. His uniform looks like the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"This is fake, it's all fake, you're all liars!" I burst out, and again, everything begins to turn gray, swirling into colorless nothing.

I turn to run out of the grocery store doors, into a blinding white that frightens me. Yet, it frightens me less than the faceless mirages waiting for me in that store.

* * *

I jerk violently, my whole body convulsing in shock as I find myself in that whiteness still. Although, something has definitely changed. Something…

I blink a few times, not comprehending what is happening to me.

"Hello?" I try to say, but it ends up coming out as a croak, like a rusty door needing to be oiled. I cough, and fill my lungs to the brim. They feel tight, like they haven't been used in ages.

"Hello?! Is anyone there?" I say, trying to see if I can move. I lift my arms and legs, which I notice are also covered in white, but it seems that the white surrounding me has limits. Very tiny limits. The white is cool to the touch, yet soft as if padded. My eyes widen in sudden fear. An irrational thought wracks its way through my brain.

_What if the Doctor thought I had died and they buried me alive?_

"Hello?! I'M ALIVE!" I screech, my voice sounding like metal scraping on glass. I bring my hands up to smack against the top of whatever coffin they've placed me in.

"I'm not dead! Please, let me out!"

Suddenly the top is ripped off, eliciting a loud hiss, and the sudden flood of color, greens and whites and oranges, causes me to startle. I squint and rub my eyes.

"Oh no, you certainly are not dead, Miss Crenshaw! You are so very alive!" The Doctor is leaning over me, smiling that infuriatingly lovable smile of his. I burst out laughing, and it comes out as a series of wheezes.

"What- I.. Doctor?! I've missed something haven't I?" I say, trying to sit up to hug him, but my body has other ideas. The Doctor props me up with his hands, helping me to sit up. I see that we are in my room in the T.A.R.D.I.S, the familiar green pulsing lights making me smile. My bed is made, and all of the clothes I had tried on the night we went to the 20's are gone.

"Only a whole month of your timeline, but who's counting?" He says, laughing happily, "How I've missed you!"

He yanks me up into a hug that I gratefully return. We stay like that for a while, as if he is reassuring himself of my existence, and I of his.

"But I was on Mount LeConte, then the library, then that grocery store…" I say, my brain struggling to keep up.

"Memories, probably. The human brain never ceases to amaze me. That was your brain, needing work, craving the synergy of working together with your body. So, it made something for itself to do. Revisit old memories."

_I guess that makes sense..._

Then, my hands fly up to my temples, pressing into them in shock.

"My pain in the brain… It's gone… But I was still able to manipulate matter, back on Kleo." I close my eyes to try to focus.

"Well, if you'd like, I might be able to sort out all of this wibbily wobbily nonsense that is your life." The Doctor says, wiggling his eyebrows at me, holding out his hand. I take it, and as I do I remember that I'm not wearing my own clothes. Someone has changed me into a white jumpsuit type thing, with metal plates sewn into certain spots, like my heart, across my abdomen… I blush slightly, hoping it hadn't been him.

"What have you got me in, Doctor? Some kind of spacey Lady Gaga get-up?" I say, and he laughs, shaking his head.

"This is a Total Regenerative Hyperbaric Chamber and Cellular Stimulation Suit, complete with the latest Neuronal Repair technology, all the way from the planet of… Trinifare." He says, giving me a wink, and I gape at him.

"A what-now from Trinifare?" I say, and he helps me out of the chamber, only to crush me in another hug. I'm glad because my legs feel like they're made of jelly. And not even the good kind either.

"Where do I start? I've had a month to rehearse this story, and look at me, flailing all over my words like an over-excited Rubrabber!" He shouts, pulling back to smile widely at me.

"Let's see… I'm not sure what you remember from that mess, but I slowed the conversion process and damaged the teleportation on the machine. Said machine overloaded with that atomic energy of yours, and I managed to get you back in the T.A.R.D.I.S. before the grey matter of your brain was damaged beyond repair. Then, I took you to Trinifare, explaining what you did for them. Refusing to save yourself in favor of their lives, and they were ever so grateful. Karma was our friend that day, because Trinifare happens to be a level six planet. So, naturally, they donated a few of their top medical innovations." He pauses to shrug. "Basically, I'm brilliant."

"Basically, you are! C'mere!" I say, grabbing his face and showering him with kisses all over his prickly cheeks. "You crazy, brilliant man!"

He shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to look modest, and failing horribly. He's practically preening like a peacock.

"But hold the phone…" I say, stumble-walking to sit on my bed. The sheets feel like heaven against my hands as I run my fingers over them. "I could still manipulate. I know I could, because I extinguished some of that fire back on Kleo. Saved you, while you were saving me, you know, the usual for us." I say, grinning and he comes to sit next to me, hands in his lap.

"I managed to siphon most of the Organic Nuclear Fission Arc Reactor out of your brain, but the machine was set to go off much sooner than expected, even with my alterations. I had to get you out of there. The Trinifarian technology mended your damaged organs and brain tissue, in just about a month. Amazing, isn't it? But Ruth's little machine is still in there. The Trinifarians dared not remove it, for fear of either killing you or killing everyone on Trinifare."

My heart drops into my feet.

"So… I'm still dying."

He shrugs.

"Not any faster than any other human. You'll be able to manipulate still, but it'll be few and far between. You've got just about an eighth of the Reactor left in there, so you know what that means?"

I stare at him, a hesitant smile spreading on my dry lips.

"It means you'll not always be able to rely on 'superpowers' when we get ourselves into trouble. Wonder how long we'll last." He says, and I let out a whoosh of breath, every last bit of tension in my body leaving with it.

_I'm going to live. I'm going to live. I'm going to live!_


	26. The Healer and The Blessed One

We end up agreeing to go on a celebratory trip to "somewhere special" after we take care of "business", and the Doctor leaves me to sort myself.

_A whole month of my life passed in what felt like a matter of seconds._

I clean up and change out of the freaky white Gaga suit, into one of my favorite casual dresses. It's a deep green with a button up front and collar. Perfect with tights, and comfortable, too.

_Great for taking care of "business", whatever the Doctor means by that…_

"Are you done yet?" I hear, muffled from behind the wall of my room's entrance. I fluff my hair a little, letting out a little huff.

_For an alien, he sure seems to have the impatience of a human male._

"Give me just a minute, Skippy. Almost finished," I say, and after putting on a dash of makeup, the doorway appears with my unspoken consent. The Doctor is standing there, looking impatient.

"Oh, you _are_ alive! Thought maybe you'd gotten lost in the mirror." He says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Then he squints, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Actually, that did happen once."

I roll my eyes, chuckling.

"Pardon me if I want to look presentable. I just got the longest beauty sleep in my life, I'd like to take advantage of it, thank you very much." I say, and he smirks, making his way over to the white healing coffin responsible for said beauty sleep.

"And pardon me if I've been waiting for a month for this particular moment in time! You look very lovely, now come along, it's time to be off! We've got things to do, people to see, planets to visit, business to take care of!" He grabs the coffin and starts tugging on it, dragging it towards the doorway. The wheels on the bottom barely seem to help at all.

"Oh? And what people and planets are we doing 'business' with before we really get back into it, hmm?" I ask, walking to the other side of the hyperbaric chamber, and pushing with all my might.

_Jeez, what is it made of, solid gold?_

"We don't want to be impolite! There are some resourceful Trinifarians that need thanking, and we shouldn't keep them waiting any longer. I may be rude sometimes, but I'm never ungrateful… They did save you after all. Least we can do is return their state-of-the-art technology," He says, his voice turning soft.

"True, I suppose we do owe them that! I'm also extremely curious."

_What are these Trinifarians like? Hopefully not like the… _

"Doctor, what are the people of Kleo called?" I ask, cocking my head before continuing to push.

"Madroons." He grunts.

_Hopefully not like the Madroons of Kleo._

With much effort we manage to get it onto the ramp leading to the door of the T.A.R.D.I.S. He starts operating the console, and I hold on to the coffin as the familiar lurch of the entire room threatens to topple me.

When we've stopped, the Doctor gives the apparatus a shove down the ramp, and I let out a little gasp, expecting it to smash the doors as if they were toothpicks.

It doesn't. It just bursts through them, and beyond the doors, I can see a blue sky, similar to Earth's, only much more indigo. The Doctor takes off after the runaway coffin.

"Hello, Trinifare! Did ya' miss us?" He shouts as soon as he crosses the doorway, and I run after him, smiling in anticipation.

The white coffin rolls to the center of a very large, very open and airy room, made of some kind of rough gray rock. Besides the columns lining the round amphitheater-style chamber, no walls confine the occupants of the room. No ceiling either, I notice. Wind blows steadily, and I'm glad I'm wearing tights under my dress.

More interesting than the room are the inhabitants, by far.

I've never seen facial features so mismatched and misplaced. An alarm goes off in my head, instinctively telling me that something is very wrong with these creatures.

_Now… That's not fair, you're judging them by human standards. Be a little open minded!_

They've got two eyes, normal enough, except they're placed below what I assume to be a mouth. It's a very wide, saggy gap in the middle of the face, with two long white fangs on either side of the perpetual frown. The top of their heads are gigantic, bulging unnaturally, as if they can hardly contain their own brains. I can see greenish veins on the pink skin of those craniums.

_My dress matches their veins._

"We're back! Hello!" The Doctor shouts, his voice carried on the wind, yet still loud as ever.

They're all wearing long white robes, stitched with gold and green. Ridiculously tiny white hats sit upon their enormous skulls.

They all just stare at us, and a Trinifarian brings one out of its three short fingers up to its frightening mouth, effectively shushing the rambunctious Time Lord. He flounders, shoving his hands in his pockets and pressing his lips tightly together. He leans back a bit as if the Trinifarian had slapped him or something. I stifle a laugh, and he gives me a sheepish look.

The Trinifarians then lift their strange faces to the indigo sky, and begin to mutter under their breath in unison. Some kind of prayer or chant that I don't quite understand. I catch snippets of it, though.

"… Queen of Skies… The Stone King… ocean of darkness… protect…"

I feel rude just standing here, irreverent and impudent as can be. So, I bow my head, and the Doctor nudges me, shaking his head.

"Am I correct in assuming you are the Healer and The Healer's Wife?" One of the Trinifarians says, standing from its seat in the middle of the amphitheater. Its voice sounds creaky, ancient. Like dust in the wind. It seems to be female.

The Doctor is obviously thinking very quickly, his eyes narrowing.

"The Healer, with his blue ship, and his beloved wife, whom he sailed the stars in seconds to save from wrongful death." The old creature rasps, walking towards us with an odd gait, swooping and halted, like a heron. Something under those white robes is making clicking sounds on the gray stone floor.

"Aww, beloved wife!" I say, taking his arm, giving him a wink when he looks at me. His face reddens, and it satisfies me to the core.

_If making the Doctor uncomfortable was a sport, I'd very much like to learn to play it. So much fun._

"Even the tiniest Trinifarian boys and girls know the story. A tale of love and sacrifice conquering war and hatred." She is standing in front of us now, her oddly placed eyes full of pride.

"I think we might be a little late, Evy." The Doctor mutters quickly, and I quirk an eyebrow.

"We have waited hundreds of years for your return," she says, "I am called Fali. Welcome Healer, and welcome blessed one."

The whole amphitheater of Trinifarians stands, raising their strange faces to the sky again.

"The Queen of Skies rejoices!" They all say, their raspy voices unifying a bit eerily.

_Blessed one? I could get used to this._

She holds out her hand to me, as if pressing against an invisible wall. Her three fingers shake, and it is then that I know for sure that she is quite old by her species' standards. I stare at her hand, until the Doctor bumps me with his hip.

"Oh, ah… Thank you, Fali. Please, call me Evy. And this is the Doctor. Sorry we're a little late returning your… equipment." I say, smiling weakly, and pressing my own hand against hers. The gap of her mouth grows wider, and I know that is her version of a grin, but it is so horrifyingly strange to me that I have to keep from cringing.

"Your selflessness is the reason that we are here, the reason that our children see the deep sky each star cycle. Our gift was not meant to be returned, it was given out of gratitude to you for ending the War of A Thousand Atrocities." She then leans in close to me, causing me to focus on resisting the urge to leap back.

_Why, oh, why do they have to look so scary? Is this really the result of a millennia of evolution for these creatures?!_

"Besides, between you and I, blessed one, that technology is now completely and utterly useless nowadays." She says, letting out a squawking sound, what I assume to be laughter, and gesturing us to follow her. We comply, and once she turns away, I give the Doctor a disbelieving smirk.

"A _bit_ late? Are you serious?" I whisper, and he shrugs.

"I might have misjudged the temporal spatial gap a little. So what. Nobody's perfect!" He says, and if I'm correct, he seems to actually be embarrassed.

_I bet this would be even more embarrassing if I were a Time Lady._

_I could poke fun at him in so much more detail if I were just a little more timey wimey!_

"They've made us into a legend, it's been so long! Some lord of time you are." I mutter, chuckling.

"I'll never hear the end of this, will I? Just like that pesky spider incident…"

"Never ever." I say, and become quiet as Fali leads us down a stairway, except it's not just a stairway. This stairway happens to be on the side of a literal cliff. It winds languorously down the side of the rocky mountain we're perched on. All I can see below us are fluffy blue clouds. We must be so far up in elevation that we're above the cloud-line.

_These Trinifarians sure do like their fresh air, I'll give them that._


	27. Doctors Can Also Be Patients

**A/N**

**Hey guys, so here it is. I think I've reached the end of this particular story. Although, I do believe that I'm having way too much fun to stop, so if you guys would like more from me, I will be very happy to oblige. I'm thinking of a separate set of Evy/Doctor drabbles, about their many subsequent adventures, and maybe even an explanation of why Evy isn't around at the time of 10's regeneration... *waggles eyebrows***

**Let me know if you would like that, or if you think this stands perfectly on its own, with no more added to it. **

**I still think I love you guys. **

**K bye.**

* * *

Fali leads us down the stairs without another word. At least ten minutes pass before we finally reach some semblance of indoors. A large arch of that same gray stone reveals a whole city inside of this mountain. The top of the arch is engraved with the face of a Trinifarian, wearing some kind of funky hat, or maybe a crown.

Every single pathway and building of this little mountain city is carved. It all fits together perfectly, as if whittled over time by water. Yet, I know that cannot be the case. Water couldn't have made something so perfectly habitable, so obviously designed. It's breathtakingly brilliant, this little city. I can see Trinifarians moving about on the streets and pathways below, walking in their peculiar bird-like manner, or on strange hovering disks. Oddly enough, the disks seem to be made of stone as well.

Fali takes us across a long bridge, made of the same gray stone as everything else. We pass some Trinifarians, and they gape at us, reverence in their oddly placed eyes. I give a little wave to some of them before Fali leads us into a small dome shaped building. Inside, it is very plain, and there are only two objects to fill it. Sitting upon a stone pedestal is a book, not surprisingly also made of stone. But the object next to it is what catches my eye.

"Is that what I think it is?" The Doctor breathes, and I think he's talking about the beautiful, pulsing green gem on a stone chain. But when he bounds forward towards the pedestal, he's staring in wonder at the stone book.

_Typical._

"It is." Fali says, placing her hand upon the stone pedestal, and green light shoots out from the stone surrounding it. It spreads like veins across the pedestal, and the air around it shimmers.

_Oh, force field. Clever._

"Evy…This is the entire history of the Kleo-Trinifare war, the War of A Thousand Atrocities. Meaning we might get a page or two to ourselves!" The Doctor says, "May I?"

"Of course, it is your past as much as ours!" Fali says, nodding her head slowly. I rush to the Doctor's side as he opens the book up, and the words on the first page scramble to make sense.

I don't get a chance to read because the picture carved into the page begins to rise up and move, like nothing I've ever seen before. It isn't see-through, or fuzzy like a hologram, yet it's being projected into the air somehow. It's a depiction of Madroons and Trinifarians, celebrating something. They're dancing and sharing food, laughing together. They're exchanging gifts, or maybe trading?

The next page is a continuation of the last scene. One Madroon and one Trinifarian have joined hands, and a whole room full of them are watching. Some kind of marriage ceremony.

_Ew. They're not even the same species… Open mind, Evy. Open mind._

The Doctor turns the page again, and the next picture is of the Madroon holding a bright, pulsing green crystal in its hands. The same one sitting right beside me, it seems. Its eyes slowly turn red as it gazes at the crystal.

The next page shows Madroons and Trinifarians butchering each other with all manner of weaponry, and one Madroon is riding some kind of horrific fanged sea creature, clutching the green crystal in his hand. It's so realistic that I can't bring myself to watch for too long.

The Doctor must turn 30 pages, all full of horrible, nightmarish things. A Trinifarian strung up by its bird-like feet. A Madroon being executed publically. The implosion of an entire mountain, in which I now know lies a whole city of Trinifarians. A Madroon being forced to cut its own facial tentacles off.

I feel extremely nauseous by the time I see something that isn't covered in some manner of blood.

It's the T.A.R.D.I.S, materializing in a city similar to this one. A little carving of the Doctor is running into the city, carrying a glowing golden woman. She hangs limply in his arms.

On the next page, the Doctor is handing the golden woman over to some Trinifarians, making wild gestures and running his hands through his hair in distress.

_Wow, they even got his mannerisms down pat. Bravo._

I know I am dead by the next picture. I know because I've stopped glowing, and the Doctor is just standing there, his carved face streaming with blue tears. He watches as the Trinifarians crowd around me, rushing to do something to help me.

I look up at the Doctor, and his jaw is set tightly, a frown reaching his eyes. He meets my gaze, and nods, answering the question I hadn't even needed to ask.

_I had actually died. I was dead. Really extremely dead, by the looks of it._

Then comes the white coffin in the next picture, and I am in the white suit now. I'm gently lowered into it, and the Trinifarians press their hands on it. Green veins of light shoot through it, just like the pedestal had when Fali deactivated the force field.

Next is just the Doctor sitting against the white coffin. A Trinifarian moves to sit beside him, presumably to comfort him. The Doctor's head bows, and he rests it in his hands, looking anguished. Then, the veins of green light suddenly shoot through the white coffin unprovoked, and the two jump up, celebrating. The lights pulse as if with a heartbeat, and I realize that is exactly what it is. The entire coffin is electrocardiographic. One big heart moniter.

_Does that mean the pulsing green crystal is for a heartbeat too? Whose heart would it be monitoring?_

The next page is the Doctor and some Trinifarians pushing the now green and white coffin into the T.A.R.D.I.S, and saying farewell. After that, a Madroon is kneeling before quite the large gathering of Trinifarians. He bows his head, his hands clasped before him as if begging. A Trinifarian approaches the Madroon and takes his hands, lifting him until they are both standing before one another.

The few pages after that are happy scenes, full of both Madroons and Trinifarians. No death, or maiming, or destruction.

_Ruth must have had a major change of heart. I guess nearly destroying your own race out of bloodlust for your enemies will do that to you._

The book closes gently, and the Doctor gives me a wide grin.

"A new era of peace and cooperation. Kleo and Trinifare are now long time trading partners! You guys even helped rebuild Hadra. Amazing how much things can change in a few hundred years, yeah?" He says, and Fali nods, her eyes glistening.

"It would have been impossible without Evy and her Doctor. The Healer and his wife." She says, holding up both of her hands to us, and we return the gesture, pressing ours against them.

_Must be like a Trinifarian hug, or something._

"Well… Evy's not my wife, really. We're just… " He shrugs, as if language has failed him.

_Fair enough. Not sure I could but a label on us either._

"The tale of the Healer is insistent that the Lady of Gold was most precious to him. But she is not your wife?" Fali says, as if scandalized, her eyes wide. She must have grown up hearing that version of the story, and to know it isn't true…

"Well, she's precious to me, we just aren't married! We're not like that, we don't…" He clears his throat, babbling away as if he can't stop the words from pouring out, and I struggle to find something else to focus on. I settle on the pulsing green stone. I don't dare touch it, thinking back to my hypothesis that it's a heart monitor.

"Yeah, we're just kind of travelling together, it's what we do, adventures and defying death, saving planets and each other, typical stuff. Not marriage, marriage is not on our itinerary, nope, just travelling! Lots of travelling. Definitely not married, that would be… Yeah, not married." He finally finishes his rant, and Fali looks extremely disappointed. I can't help but feel a little offended myself.

_I didn't realize being married to me would be such an embarrassing assumption for someone to make. The great Time Lord married to a dull little human like me? Unthinkable!_

"Right, no marriage, nothing of the sort" I say, my voice a little venomous, "That would just be horrifying, to think of us, married? Eugh, sweet mother of pearl, how ridiculous! Unthinkable, that a Time Lord would marry me!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him jerk his head in my direction, his bushy eyebrows nearly up to his hairline.

"I see… Your story of love has inspired generations upon generations of tradition, though! In honor of the Healer and his Wife, it is now customary for a bride to dress in long robes of gold before agreeing to bond with a male. It is a ceremony of commitment and union for life, celebrating the peace you brought upon our people. So…" She scratches her enormous head with one plump finger, "We will keep that revelation to ourselves for now."

Silence reigns for a few heartbeats.

I can feel the Doctor's eyes on me, practically drilling into the back of my head.

"I didn't-" He starts to say, but I'm suddenly in the mood to not hear him talk. He does so much of that.

"Fali," I say, raising my voice over his, "What is this stone connected to? It must be very valuable to Trinifare, starting a war like the Kleo-Trinifare war. And that green light, it seems to monitor a heartbeat, or something similar."

"Yes, blessed one, you are very quick. This is the Heart of Farion, The Stone King. Whoever holds his heart sways his mind." She says, nodding as if everything is now explained.

"The Stone King. A deity of yours?" I say, curiosity overshadowing any annoyance I feel for the Doctor. But he must have learned a few things over the years, because he remains quiet.

"Not just a deity, The Stone King's domain stretches over our entire planet. It is why we live inside of the mountains. Whoever holds his heart sways his mind." She says, and grasps the green stone in her hand, gesturing us to follow her outside of the building.

She points to the bridge before us, and I watch in awe as green light spreads from her feet to the bridge. Wherever the green light goes, stone moves like gel. It molds itself into shapes until, a minute later, a statue of a human woman stands in the middle of the bridge. It's me.

I clap my hands in delight.

"That is amazing, Fali! Trinifare has definitely earned its level six status, that's for sure!" I say.

"Level seven, now, actually…" The Doctor can't help but chime in.

"Yes, thank you, level seven." I say, trying my best not to be huffy with him.

_He can't help it that I'm so much simpler than he is. All joking aside, he is a literal genius and I'm just… Not timey wimey enough._

"The Stone King gives us stability and shelter, while Trinia, his Queen, gifts the world with her beauty and breath. The Heart of Farion is how we build our cities and roads."

_Farion and Trinia. Trinia and Farion. Trinifare. Ha!_

"That's why it was so important for you to get the stone back from the Madroons. Who knows what they could have done to your planet." I say, and it begins to fall in place, like pieces of a puzzle.

"Precisely." Fali says simply, "Please, walk with me one last time before you head off. I'd ask you to stay, but the tales of the Healer and his Wife paint you to be wandering souls."

We start the long trek back to the T.A.R.D.I.S, and I worry that Fali won't be able to make it up the steps. But I am eating her dust by the time we're halfway up the windy stairway.

_Spry old thing, isn't she?_

She thanks us profusely, practically every four steps she's applauding us for bringing peace.

_I wonder if the Madroons think of us as heroes, too…_

The open-air amphitheater on the top of the mountain is empty now. The wind groans, and I notice it to be much chillier than it had been just a half hour before. The sky is an even deeper indigo, and I think it must be getting late on Trinifare. Goosebumps rise on my skin. I rub my arms quickly for the warmth of friction and almost immediately, the Doctor slides out of his long coat, draping it on my shoulders. His lingering warmth seeps into my cool skin, and dissolves any remaining irritation I have for him. He gives me a tentative little smile, and I return it, snuggling into the coat appreciatively. It smells like him.

When I return my attention to Fali, her eyes are twinkling, as if she knows something we don't.

"You are welcome on Trinifare at any time, for any reason. We will never be able to repay our debt to the Healer and his Wife." She says, her choice of words obviously deliberate. The Doctor chuckles, giving her a little wave before unlocking the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Bye, Fali! Hopefully we'll see you again!" I say and follow the Doctor into the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Well, _Healer_," I drawl, grinning at him, "That was interesting. I always enjoy a good history lesson!"

He's already pushing buttons on the console.

"Can you believe that we inspired an entire culture? Just an insignificant human and a brilliant old Time Lord, but our story has spread to every single Trinifarian." I continue, wrapping the coat around me tighter. The Doctor does the opposite of what I thought he would do. I expect him to burst out grinning and rant about how wonderful sentient life is, but he doesn't. He just frowns, continuing to push buttons and throw levers.

"Don't. Don't do that." He says, briefly lifting his eyes to mine, and I see frustration in them. I take my hand off of the railing, thinking he means not to touch anything.

"Do what? Why?" I say quickly, and the room lurches as he throws a lever.

"Call me brilliant and yourself insignificant. Don't ever think like that. Not only am I not better than you, I am worse, so much worse. Stained and ruined and wretched. I'm not worth the scum on your shoes, Evy." He says after the sound of the vortex swallowing us has stopped. I shake my head in denial as soon as the words leave his lips, my mouth open in shock.

"Hey," I snap at him, and he grudgingly meets my gaze, "I'll have none of that. If I'm not allowed to even call myself insignificant, you're not allowed to call yourself wretched and… and… scum! It's not true and you know it." I say, wheeling from his rapid mood change. "What brought that on, anyway?"

"I know what you were thinking when I said you weren't my wife. And if you knew… Well that thought would never even cross your mind if you knew." He says, heading for the doors of the T.A.R.D.I.S.

He moves to brush past me, but I snatch his hand, gripping it tightly. The sleeve of his coat is so long on me that it covers both my hand and his.

"I said I'd never ask," I say softly, "But I think you might need to talk about whatever this is."

He presses his lips tightly together, looking down at his white trainers.

"I'm… Evy, I'm not who you think I am." He says. I raise his hand up to hold it in both of mine, lacing my fingers through his. He watches me with stormy gold eyes.

"Then tell me who you are."

"I'm a murderer, Evy. A killer, through and through. The Time Lords are gone because of me. I sentenced them to a fate worse than death. Along with all the other races involved in the Time War. I did it. Self-righteous and cold-blooded. I ended them…"

I just fiddle with some of his fingers.

"Aren't you listening? I murdered millions of my own people. I'm a monster. That's who you're defending, Evelyn. A monster." He says, shouting now, that familiar rage coming out to play.

"Tell me the reason you did it."

"Does it matter?" He retorts, finally grasping my hands in his, stilling their movement.

"Yes. It's the most mattering matter of this whole matter. Because you say I don't know you, but I do, Doctor. You wouldn't do that without a very good reason. Even though you might have been a different man when this Time War happened, you still never would, unless you had to."

His hands grip mine a bit tighter.

"I should have found another way. The Time War was spreading, about to devour the entire universe, everyone in the war was completely mad with bloodlust, but it's no excuse for destroying dozens of planets and dooming your own people to a perpetual hell, Evy."

"Doctor, I want you to look at me."

He takes a deep breath and obeys, his eyes still wide and his jaw so tight it might snap at any second.

"You need to realize that your past may not be irrelevant, but it doesn't define you either. Yes, you have darkness inside of you. But the thing is, Doctor… Everyone does… In fact, I'll tell you a secret… You kept me from killing Ruth. I wanted to. I wanted to punish him for wronging me, for dooming me to an early death. I wanted him to suffer. But you're the one who broke through my darkness with your light."

He remains quiet, his eyes melting from their frenzied glare. His grip on my hands becomes lighter, and I take the opportunity to twine my fingers with his, bringing them up to his hearts.

"You're not a monster. You're… well, you're human. For lack of a better word. We don't do well alone in our own heads for too long." I say, daring to lift my lips into a little smile. His shoulders drop from their tense posture, and he nods slowly.

"Everyone needs someone." He says, his tone suggesting that he has given up. I then decide to do something very bold, but very distracting, which is what he needs. I untangle our fingers and reach up to grip his tie, tugging lightly on it. He knows what I'm doing, I can see the sudden bulge in his eyes. Yet he allows me to pull him in for a kiss. I make it light, gentle, just a reminder that he'll never need to feel like scum so long as I'm around. Just as he begins to respond, moving his lips against mine, I pull away.

A blush burns my entire face.

"So where have you taken us, you crazy alien?" I ask, hiding behind my hair, suddenly so very embarrassed at my brashness.

He just smiles. I take that as a good sign, that he's no longer brooding, all doom and gloom.

"Well, let's find out together. Shall we, Miss Crenshaw?" He says, offering his arm to me. I smirk, rolling up the lanky sleeves of his coat and taking it.

"We shall, Mr. Doctor."


	28. A White Hell

**A/N**

**Alright my lovelies! Seems I'm continuing the story! So long as a single person requests more and enjoys it, I will keep writing :] **

**You've all made me so very happy, I owe you at least that, don't I? ;]**

**Lots of Love**

**-A.**

* * *

Seems like I've been running with the Doctor for years now.

Years of excitement, and love, and grief, and healing, and joy, and exploration, and discovery.

I know that can't be right though, because… Well, actually, I suppose I wouldn't know. Time is relative, but in the T.A.R.D.I.S, there's nothing to relate it to. Time back on Earth was predictable, safe and steady. Everything happened when it was supposed to happen, how it was supposed to happen, and that was all you needed to know about it.

Time was a river, and you were just floating along, powerless to turn around.

The Doctor, though, he appeared one day and plucked me out of that river, the little inconsequential guppy I was, and showed me the truth. He gave me the ability to know myself not as the lonely and socially inept geek I saw, but as a giant. He told me that I was intelligent and beautiful and powerful, and then he let me prove it.

I helped save lives, including the Doctor's, and he saved mine in return, in more ways than the obvious. Because, as I'm just starting to learn, that's what he does.

_The Doctor makes people better. _

These are the thoughts swirling in my mind as I watch him working the T.A.R.D.I.S, looking ridiculous as ever. He leaps back and forth, pushing buttons and yanking levers to and fro.

_Sometimes I swear he doesn't even know what he's doing. Just pushing random buttons and hoping it does the correct thing._

I lean slightly to the left, the perfect angle in anticipation of the familiar lurch of the T.A.R.D.I.S, and as I expect, the room tilts. I don't even lose my balance anymore. I suspect that the Doctor's driving skills are also improving, in some miniscule manner.

The Doctor grins and throws the doors to the T.A.R.D.I.S open to reveal trees, capped with fluffy white. A bitterly cold gust of wind blows dusty snowflakes into the console room between our feet. The piles of snow capture all of the sound of the surrounding forest, and absorb it, creating a peaceful, sort of numb world. Yet… Panic grips my heart, causing my breath to come short. My eyes sting with tears, of fear and grief.

_The snow. Why is the snow bad? Why is the snow frightening me? _

"Evy? You alright? Thought you'd like a nice stroll through a forest, you being Mother Nature and all. And not just any forest, a forest virtually untouched by human civilization, wild as wild can be." The Doctor says, giving my arm a quick, excited shake when I don't respond.

_The Doctor stumbles in the snow covered alley, practically dragging his dying body towards the T.A.R.D.I.S._

_Our first kiss for me, our last for him._

_"God damn it! Just tell me what to do, tell me how to help you!"_

"Nope, we're leaving. I'd love a walk through a forest, just not this particular forest. Any other forest, maybe during summer time? Much too freezing out, I'm definitely a summer gal myself." I say, forcefully grabbing his arm with all my might and marching back into the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"What? That's it, you don't even want to know when or where we are? You, Evelyn Anne Crenshaw, are refusing to explore? Now that'd be plain strange even if you had a good reason, but… Just because it's a bit nippy out?" He slides his arm out of my grasp and squares himself in front of me, searching my eyes carefully, "Well that's complete rubbish, what's really going on here?"

He must see the fear and sadness in my eyes because the mocking smirk upon his lips melts away. I just shake my head, my mouth open yet refusing to utter words.

_I can't tell him. He even agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea. His fate might worsen, time might unravel, who knows what will happen when a Time Lord learns his future._

"Evy?" he says, quirking an eyebrow, and I let out a groan of exasperation.

"When are we?" I say, suddenly furious, at myself for not bring clever enough to know how to change his future, at the universe for even considering killing this stupid, wonderful man.

"Um… Early to mid 1800's, Earth, America, Colorado, The Golden Age of the Frontiersman." He says, giving me jazz hands in his excitement, forgetting that this situation might have some pretty heavy gravity to it.

"Near any cities, or… towns?" I ask, remembering the snowy streets and alleys of his end.

"Oh no, definitely not time for that yet! You've only just got here, you humans have! It'll be fur trappers and trading posts up here, no settlements to speak of. Expect maybe native settlements, but I'd classify those more as 'villages' rather than cities or towns, wouldn't you?"

I hum in agreement, thoughtfully biting my lip.

_I mean, if it's impossible for the scenery in my dream to even be here… Then today isn't the day. I still have plenty of time._

_The word 'plenty' being used quite loosely, of course…_

"Okay… I suppose we can take a look around. I'll go grab a jacket, or maybe a triple layered fur coat. I hate winter, I really do." I say, sighing. He lets out a rowdy laugh.

"Hafurtian Slime Monsters didn't scare you, but a winter breeze does!" He taunts as I enter the wardrobe.

"The Hafurtian Slime Monsters could be reasoned with, winter stops for no one! It's absolutely ruthless. When's the last time you bargained with a season, Time Lord?" I shout, sifting through the racks of clothes like one would leaf through the pages of a book. Finally I find the perfect coat. It's long and wine-colored, just thickly padded enough. Not too poofy to restrain movement, but definitely warm enough for the white hell waiting for me outside. It buttons up the front, and cinches with a belt in the middle. I put it on as I make my way back to the console room, and the Doctor is standing in the doorway, donning his usual brown coat, his breath leaving his mouth in wisps of steam.

"Alright, let's get this over with." I say, marching out of the T.A.R.D.I.S, and my leather boots crunch in the white snow. Not a single print in the snow to be seen anywhere. Icicles hang from the ends of the evergreens like designer Christmas ornaments. Every single thing my eyes rest upon is sparkling and shimmering crystal.

_I guess it's kind of pretty. White hell or not._

"Chin up, Crenshaw, you can't resist a forest." He says, taking my hand, and I'm glad for the warmth.

_Been awhile since something life threatening has happened to us, though…_

"Yeah, as true as that is, I'm still keeping my guard up. Nothing good happens in winter…" I mutter, and we start to walk through the trees, lifting our feet high over the snow and ducking stiff branches.

"Except for Christmas, that's not too bad, yeah?"

_Always have to be Mr. Brightside, don't you, Doctor?_


	29. Animal Control

We trudge along for a bit, not seeing much else besides the crystalline forest. A squirrel, here and there, some birds twittering about… Until distantly, very distantly, the sound of metal striking metal can be heard.

"Hear that? It sounds promising! C'mon!" The Doctor says, and actually starts to trot through the snow, his long legs not deterred by the white drift at all. I do my best to keep up with him, stumbling and slipping along behind him. I feel as if the snow is aware of my intense hatred for it, and is punishing me by draining my sanity.

_If winter were a person, I'd murder it without a single, measly, tiny bit of remorse. None._

We burst out into a clearing, and find our feet squelching into mud. A rudimentary and narrow road, or path, leads to three wooden buildings. In the opposite direction, the path winds off into the forest, being swallowed by the vastness of the white snow. Smoke billows out of a stone chimney on two of the buildings. One is obviously a blacksmith's workshop. Another seems to be a house, or a shack, not really sure at this juncture. The third is definitely a stable, with five horses standing miserably in their muddy stalls.

My eyes meet with a young man in the workshop. He's bundled up, only his eyes exposed, and with that single glance, he returns to hammering away at a glowing strip of metal on an anvil.

"I reckon you folks need some supplies."

A rather rough looking older gentleman with a handlebar mustache and a long rifle steps out of the house-shack, and the Doctor immediately bristles. Yet, he maintains his friendly demeanor.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor, this is Evy, we're just passing through, seeing the sights! Who are you?"

The man looks extremely displeased to hear that. He shoulders his rifle and scuffs his boot on the rickety wooden porch.

"I'm Bill Hatcher. I run this trading post, so if you're not here to buy or sell, and you ain't got nothing to protect yourselves with, I suggest you hightail it out of here before dark. Don't want no more people, especially you city folk, dying in my neck of the woods."

The Doctor and I exchange glances, each of us raising an eyebrow.

"Dying? Why are people dying out here?" I ask, and he huffs impatiently.

"Besides bein' ignorant as hell?" Bill says, gesturing for us to follow him inside of his house, "We've got some nasty critters up here. Thought you would've heard by now."

"We're not really from around here." The Doctor says shrugging, and Bill grunts, shutting the door behind us. It's a cramped little home, but warm and cozy. He's got a bed, a kitchen, and a little table with assorted knives and dead animals strewn about it. All in the same room.

_I know historically, the west wasn't exactly known for its sanitary practices, but… _

I grimace at the animal pelts hung by the fire.

"Yeah, well, plain as day, you're a Brit, so I figured." Bill says, and the Doctor smirks. I can't help but chuckle. "You're an American though, ma'am. You should've known better than to come up here."

"Well… Let's just pretend that we're both completely oblivious-"

"Shouldn't be too hard," Bill mutters, sitting down at his table. I ignore him.

"-and go from there."

"You're tellin' me you ain't heard about the Dragon?"

I can't help it. I let out an incredulous little laugh. The Doctor just watches him intently.

_I guess not much is ridiculous after all he's seen._

"A dragon? An actual dragon in Colorado?"

"Color- Lady, you don't even know where you are, you ain't in much of a position to laugh." Bill says, his face darkening into a scowl.

"Not a state yet," The Doctor hisses under his breath in my ear, and I decide that maybe it's time I let the Doctor work his magic.

"A Dragon? What does this dragon look like, then? Can it blow fire, fly, the whole complete package?"

"Fly, breathe fire, rip a whole huntin' party of men to pieces… you name it. It's been hell for my livelihood out here, I can tell you that much."

"Have you seen it?" The Doctor asks, leaning on one of the walls of the little cabin.

"I seen it, alright. I was part of that huntin' party. Ten men left the post that mornin', two returned… It was the exact color of the fresh snow, didn't even see it comin'. It was real sneaky-like, kept pickin' us off like we was scared rabbits."

Bill's eyes seem hollow now, and I feel sorrow for the harsh man.

_He must have been terrified, and to lose all of those men, to be helpless to stop it…_

"Would you be able to tell us how to find this dragon?"

Bill looks furious, and he stands up abruptly, sending his chair flying to the wooden floor.

"Ain't no way I'm lettin' a couple of tourists, let alone a Brit and a lady, go trompin' off into my woods, lookin' for death! Now, you either buy somethin' or get goin' back to Edgewood, before my hospitality runs its course!"

The Doctor nods slowly, rising from his chair as well. I just shrink back against the wall, eyeing the trembling knives and trapping tools on the table with trepidation.

"Mr. Hatcher, Bill, can I call you Bill? Fantastic. Bill, we, as difficult as it may be to believe, might be your best chance at getting rid of this dragon issue of yours. We've actually been at this for quite some time now!" He says and Bill's blue eyes narrow.

"Ya'll are trappers? Hunters?" He says.

"Yes! We definitely know a thing or two about murdering animals." I say without thinking, "_Trapping_ animals, I mean. Hunting them. That sort of stuff."

Bill looks unconvinced.

"You ain't got any weapons, or traps, or nothing!" He says, gesturing to us in our bare coats, with nothing to show.

"Well, that's why we've come here! We'd like to acquire some equipment, and then, Bill, we'd really like to help you." The Doctor says, and Bill perks up at the mention of a prospective transaction.

"Well… Why didn't you say so? I've got bows, guns, beartraps, coon cages, whip lines, slip knot traps…" He says, giving us an expectant look. The Doctor stutters, flustered by all of the methods of murder thrown before him.

"I'll take the bow, the Doctor will take a slip knot." I say, and Bill gives the Doctor a funny look before moving about the cabin. He picks up a fine looking, hand carved wooden recurve bow, with a leather quiver containing dozens of feathered arrows. Then he reaches under his bed and comes up with a length of rope, knotted and looped in several places.

"What you got for it?" He asks, and I reach into the pockets of my red coat. My left hand comes up empty, but my right hand grasps upon something metal.

"How about…" I lift my hand and open it to reveal a metal toy car. "…this!"

Bill squints at it, and I give the Doctor a questioning glare. He shrugs, shaking his head.

"Is it worth much?" He asks, reaching for it, and I play along, cradling it back against my chest.

"Oh yes… This is the prototype, the very first imagining, of the next generation of train. City folk would rave over it, but you know what's even better?" I say, and his eyes rise to meet mine curiously.

"The best part of the deal is that we're going to sort out this whole dragon problem, and you're going to get more traders up here in no time." I say, and he frowns, thinking hard.

"Ya'll actually want to go lookin' for the Dragon, at this time of day, with just a bow and a trap is all's gonna' protect you?" He says, and when we both nod, he shakes his head grimly.

"Your funerals, I reckon. Follow the road North of here, til' you reach a lake. Ya'll will know exactly what to do once you're there." He says, and hands the bow to me, and the slip knot rope to the Doctor. I drop the toy car into his calloused hand, and he regards it with wonder. My hands expertly slip the quiver over my shoulder, and the bow after it, both resting across my chest. I find I'm enjoying the familiar feel of it.

The Doctor just holds the trap in his hands, scrunching his nose at it in distaste. I head for the door, and grudgingly step through it into the bitter cold. I glance up to the top of the tree line, seeing the birth of a pink-orange sky beginning.

"Hurry up, Doctor. We've got a dragon to catch."


	30. What's The Worst That Can Happen?

Bill lends us two of his poor horses, underfed and bony as can be. I feel like a wretched human being as I boost myself up into the saddle.

_This cannot feel good, having am entire human bouncing up and down on your bare spinal column._

The Doctor seems to be thinking the same, as he strokes the poor creature's neck before swinging up onto its back. I keep my seat as light as possible, supporting my weight with my own muscles.

"Alright, judging from the position of the sun, we have about two hours before nightfall. I can always build us a fire if we make camp, make a bed out of those lovely evergreen pine needles." I say and the Doctor nods, bouncing awkwardly on his horse once we get going into an energetic trot.

"Sounds like a plan. Oh! A plan, we never have one of those." The Doctor says and I laugh, resting a hand on the saddle horn, finding it to be more comfortable.

"Kind of nice, isn't it?"

"Nah, I don't care for it. See, the thing about plans is that when you have one, you open up opportunities for it to be ruined. No plan means no ruined plan." He says and I roll my eyes.

"Always one for spontaneity, eh Doctor?"

"Spontaneity is good! Spontaneity is what bonded the first organic molecule, spontaneity is literally… the spice of life!" He says, glancing at me, obviously proud of his joke. I give him a reluctant laugh, and he beams at me, smiling widely.

_Well… I do have to appreciate nerd humor._

"Okay, that's all very good, but when you're in the middle of the western frontier in the Rocky Mountains, at nightfall, during winter, with no supplies to fall back on… The less spice the better."

"Oh, c'mon Evy, what's the-"

"Don't you dare say it!" I say, pointing my finger at him, daring him to continue. He pauses, his mouth held open teasingly.

"-worst that can happen?!" He finishes and bursts out laughing. Our horses jerk their heads at the loud noise erupting out of the Doctor's mouth.

"Well. I guess that seals it. We're definitely going to get stranded and die now, thanks a lot, you crazy alien." I say.

We keep the horses trotting down the muddy path for what must be twenty minutes or so. They're breathing heavily, their nostrils pumping out steam in the twilight of this snowy evening. I suggest we let the horses walk for a bit when I notice it. Nightfall is coming regardless of how quickly we get to the lake, anyway. We don't need to work the unfortunate beasts to death.

A fresh snow is beginning, fat and fluffy snowflakes landing on the dark fur of our horses. They seem grateful for the respite, stretching their necks out and bumping each other's noses amicably. I pat my horse's neck, wondering what her name might be.

"She looks like a Peanut. What do you think?" I say, and the Doctor shakes his head.

"Definitely not, her name is Eliza III. Family name, you see. I speak horse." He says. I laugh, thinking he must be joking, yet he's not even smiling.

_He's joking right? He must be joking. Pulling my leg, or something._

"Alright, then, Horse Whisperer. Eliza III it is."

Eliza III's ears prick as her name leaves my lips and she shakes her head, as if pleased.

_Maybe he really does speak horse… It's not the strangest thing I've heard, nowadays._

"You don't really speak-"

Suddenly Eliza III jerks her head up, her nostrils flaring and her hooves digging into the mud. She trembles underneath me, and I immediately know that I am in for a wild ride. I grip my legs tighter around the saddle, clutching the horn in front of me.

"Doctor," I say, my voice wavering, "She's going to bolt."

The Doctor's horse prances, tossing his head as well, and the reins are yanked out of his hands. A low rumble sounds from behind us, a gravelly growl, and both of our horses whinny in terror.

"Just stay calm, as long as we all stick together- Eliza III, don't!" The Doctor says, and just like that, we're off to the races.

Eliza III lurches into a headlong gallop, and I struggle to maintain my balance once she veers off into the tree-line. A yelp escapes my lips and I lean low over her neck, gripping her black mane in my freezing cold hands. Branches slice into my face, a few nearly knocking me off. In my terror, I grip the horse beneath me with every ounce of strength I have in my muscles, refusing to be unseated.

"Easy, Eliza III! It's alright, girl! Please stop running, please, please…" I say, squeezing my eyes shut against the stinging wind and the branches. She ignores me, and even seems to put more effort into her escape.

At last, she begins to slow, and I dare to open my eyes. Just in time to see a branch heading straight for my gut. It smacks into my body, separating horse from rider, and I land roughly on my side. My hip complains heartily and pain jolts through my leg. I gasp and wheeze for breath, finding that it's been knocked clean out of me.

"Eliza!" I pant, but she continues to trot off into the endless white. Leaving me alone in a darkening wilderness, unfamiliar and cold and frightening. Knowing horses, she'll head back towards the post. But I can't follow her.

_Not without the Doctor._

All at once, the sounds of the forest become apparent to me. In the falling snow, a hawk cries above me, a fox barks, and a distant howling wolf lets its presence be known rather boldly.

I groan and push myself up, finding that my leg is fine, just a little sore. I check to see how badly broken my bow is, but to my delight, it's absolutely flawless. My arrows are scattered all around me, and I set to work picking them up, dusting the feathers off and placing them back in my quiver. I hug my arms around my sore abdomen, my eyes searching the trees for any sign of the Doctor.

"Doctor!" I shout with my numb hands cupped around my mouth, and I only get a reply of startled animals, apparently cooing and squawking at me to be quiet.

I think back to that deep growl we'd heard. The Doctor's horse hadn't bolted, and it begins to worry me. That growl was unlike anything I've ever heard, and if it belongs to the dragon…

_I have to get back. All the Doctor has is a damn rope to protect himself with._

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I'm underestimating him, but it's better to underestimate than overestimate in this case.

I romp back through the snow, following the trail left by Eliza III. The new snow is quickly covering it, though.

_I need to be going faster than I currently am. Damn snow. _

I slip then, landing face first in wet cold, but after cursing the snow to a horrible demise, I heave myself back up and continue my trek. Darkness is quickly falling now, and I know I only have minutes before it'll begin to be so very difficult to see.

"Doctor!" I try again, listening for a reply, a shout, a distant echo, anything…

I halt in my march through the snow, squinting in the growing darkness, trying to find the trail.

It's nowhere to be seen.

I look up to the trees, searching for the rising moon, but I find none. I can barely even see the outline of the tree tops against the sky.

"What's the worst that can happen, Evy? Evy what's the worst that can happen, oh I'm the Doctor and I'm so clever and hilarious, and plans are silly because I'm so brilliant, what's the worst that can happen?!" I say, mocking his thick accent, snatching some sticks from beneath an evergreen. I yank a wide strip of bark off of the tree, taking an arrow and cutting some shavings off of the soft wood beneath it. I crouch down beneath the tree, removing the bow and quiver from across my chest, and set to work gathering wood in the pitch black.

_This is going to be very difficult. Everything for the fire is either covered in snow, or fresh off of the tree. Not to mention I'm shivering worse than a leaf in a storm…_

_I need to get a fire going, but I also need to find the Doctor. I could freeze to death if I don't sit by a fire, but the Doctor could really need my help._

_Challenge accepted, I guess?_


	31. Mr Fine From Fineville

Beneath my tree, after at least an hour of hard work, my hands are close to bleeding, and not even a spark yet. But, I know the key with making fires is to never give up.

So I continue my futile chore, my arms screaming with overuse. Every few moments, I feel compelled to glance up into the night, as if it would help me spot any hungry predators. Or maybe some dragons. It wouldn't, of course, given that my human eyes are entirely useless and pathetic in the dark.

The warmth of adrenaline seeps through my veins at the sound of wings. Very large wings, and I stop moving, stop trying to make a fire, I even stop breathing. My entire tree sways above me, branches and pine needles dropping on me. I cover my mouth with my hand, my eyes sweeping the darkness in front of me, wishing above all for a migraine. But that won't happen, not for a very long time.

_I'm just a normal human, with some normal sticks, and…_

And a bow.

I slowly reach for my bow, cringing as it rustles the ground beneath it. I grip it tightly in my left hand, feeling around for the quiver. Once I find it, I slide it over my head and wait, listening for movement. Just as I grasp an arrow, I hear a loud thud in front of me, the sound of snow being sent flying. Gusts of icy wind bite at my face, and I knock the arrow as quickly as I can, leaping out from under the tree. I point the bow in the general direction of the loud breathing I can hear.

_Well, this is definitely the famous dragon I've been hearing all about. That or a flying bear?_

Out of nowhere, fire appears, coating the tree in blazing light. My eyes adjust so rapidly it's almost painful, and I can see my opponent.

_A little small for my idea of a dragon, really._

It's a brilliant white, about seven feet tall, with pearly scales glittering all over its body. Fire is spewing from its fanged maw, its teeth the same color as its hide. It has startling blue eyes, several slits of black pupils in each, watching me as it destroys my tree. Ivory horns line its face and back, its tail tipped with feathers of the same hue. Its wings span a length twice its height, and it beats the air with them aggressively as it displays its affinity for flame.

It is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

"Thanks so much for getting the fire started for me… Buddy…" I squeak, hoping maybe I'm extremely lucky, and this beast happens to be sentient enough to reason with.

_After all, it was kind enough to shed some light on the situation._

It stops breathing fire, and stares at the bow in my hand with a startling level of intelligence in its cerulean eyes. A rumble so long and deep that it shakes my heart and resonates in my lungs leaves the jaws of the dragon. It folds its wings, dropping to all fours, and slinks towards me, moving like a lioness stalking prey. I follow it with my arrow, knowing the Doctor would disapprove. My arms begin to shake with the effort to hold the string back, and I know I can't hold this Mexican Standoff forever.

_He'd tell me to put the bow down. To show it I mean no harm._

Yet, I can't bring myself to be the Doctor. I can't put so much trust in something so foreign and strange to me.

_I just can't._

I pull the arrow back even further, to my anchor at the edge of my mouth. The dragon bares its teeth, snarling so intensely that some smoke leaks through its teeth, and I let the arrow fly. It glances off of the dragon's shoulder scales, taking a few of them off with it. I turn immediately and run.

I run as fast as the damn snow will let me.

A furious roar from behind, so loud that I hear snow falling from trees because of it, causes me to let out a little scream of terror. I reach back to knock another arrow, and when I turn around, the dragon is bounding through the trees, away from the fiery mess of a tree. I shoot another arrow, and it hits the dragons face dead on. The beast lets out a keening yowl, shaking its head and pawing at the arrow stuck between its facial scales.

"Evy?!" I hear someone yelling, but I continue watching the dragon. Its eyes are filling with wetness. Tears. The sound it's making nearly breaks my heart, a high pitched, sobbing howl, full of pain. It continues to shake its head, trying to dislodge the arrow, and in so doing, it snaps the shaft off. It's then that the creature spreads its wings and takes off, still clawing at the arrow in its cheek.

I feel a sharp pang of regret. Guilt.

"Evy!" I hear again, and I turn towards it, slinging the bow over my head. My legs propel me through the snow as fast as they can.

"I'm here! I'm okay!" I shout back, dodging trees as they appear out of the darkness.

"I know, I know, I'm just popping in to give you a little something. A present, just for you!" I hear, very closely. Whoever it is must be nearly in front of me now.

"What do you mean? Who are you?" I say, squinting at the figure walking towards me. A man, taller than me by a bit, but not too much. Once he's standing in front of me, he lets out what seems like a breath of disbelief.

"Evelyn Anne! Never thought I'd have a chance to see you again. Can't really see, but this will have to do, because when I noticed this little baby in the market, BAM," The man shouts, propelling spit all over my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing, and wipe it off, "I knew what I had to do!"

"What the _hell_ are you talking about?" I grit out, a familiar, infuriated feeling emerging.

_Life threatening situation, stupid man acting like it's nothing…_

"Still as sweet as ever, I see! C'mere, show me the love!" He says, and suddenly I'm being hugged. By a strange man. In the darkness of a strange forest. With a dragon lurking about.

He pulls away, and with him being so close to me I can see his face a little. He's got small eyes, with long hair swept across a broad forehead.

_And a rather large chin. Wow. That is quite a chin._

"Who-"

"No time for that, I'm only allowed to give you this, and then I need to leave before timelines get crossed. A nasty business that would be, I've had quite enough of the universe ripping itself apart lately, thank you very much." He nudges me as if I might relate to that, "I'm only allowed to do this because... Well, you needed me to. I'd already done it! A never-ending loop of me doing this and then realizing what to do because of it and doing this again and again, a loop that must never, ever be broken! All really very clever."

My eyes widen, and I reach out to grip his impressive chin between my now frozen fingers. I get as close to him as possible without touching his face with mine. His eyes are a different shape and a different color, but they burn with the same exact timeless love, and knowledge, and sadness. A burning I've become quite familiar with.

"You're… You... Doctor?!" I say, my voice cracking, and he chuckles low in his chest.

"Hello, Miss Crenshaw…" He murmurs, and he takes my hands in his, warming them. I feel tears prick my eyes, because I know what this means.

"Are you… You're not travelling alone, are you? You've got someone?" I ask, twining my fingers with his, and I can just barely see his lips lift into a soft smile.

"Spoilers, Evy. You know I shouldn't-"

"I need to know you're okay." I interrupt him. He stays silent for a bit, and my stomach turns.

_Oh god, he's alone and miserable and sad and I'm not going to be there to make sure he's okay, am I?_

"I'm not alone, I'm fine, Mr. Fine from Fineville. Now run along, have our adventures," he finally says, and when his hand leaves mine, he drops something into it, closing my fingers around it gently.

"This is a Psychic Reverberator. Got it at the Festival of Offerings, for a great price, just one little doodle of Rose I'd done ages ago! Anyway, the Drackon is telepathic, but can only communicate on brainwaves of its own species. All you do is pop this into your ear, and it'll do its thing, convert your brainwaves, and before you know it, you'll be out of this white hell of yours. And if at all possible, try to get me to wear bowties more often." He says, tapping my nose lightly with one finger, and starts to turn away. He stops himself though, turning back so quickly I flinch.

_This Doctor is even more spazzy than my Doctor, somehow._

"And Evy… Remember that time can be rewritten. You just remember that, you beautiful, brilliant human." He says, giving me a lingering kiss on the cheek, and I catch the glimmer of a wink before he is walking away, into the darkness and away from me forever.

"Doctor." I whisper, hoping he'll hear me and come back.

But he doesn't.


	32. Nothing Good Ever Happens in Winter

I stand for quite a while in the silence. Snowflakes begin to litter my hair and eyelashes, but I just stand. I need to think. I need to process. I turn the little contraption in my hand, rubbing its smoothed metallic edges absentmindedly.

_So… The Doctor from the future just encouraged me to change time, to rewrite a timeline, mine or his or someone else's._

_Who knows which… I'll need to figure that out. And once I do, I'll need to also figure out how the heck I do that. _

I sigh deeply, and suddenly I realize that, once again, I am in the middle of the dark forest, no light or fire or warmth. The Doctor gave me the key to the dragon- no… Drackon problem. But I'm still stranded and slowly turning hypothermic. My body shakes violently now.

_That's a good sign. It's when I'm not shivering anymore that I really need to worry._

I open my eyes as wide as I can and look up to the tree tops.

If I can just find the North star, maybe I can head in the generally correct direction for the trading post. South, probably a little to the west.

_Or the lake to the north? I need to communicate with this Drackon, anyway. And Bill said we'd find it there._

"Oh, decisions are so much easier when you've got a bossy alien around…" I mutter through my chattering teeth, and once I find the North star, peeking through a few branches, I follow it.

_Besides, if I want to find the Doctor, I'd best go straight for the danger._

I walk for quite a long time, so long that I begin to get worried that I'm just getting myself even more stranded. The trees all begin to look the same, becoming closer together, harder to walk through. Yet, I persevere, pushing my way through the thick branches until I tumble out into a clearing. At last, a beautiful clearing, something different at least.

I hear the gentle sloshing of water against land, and my pounding heart flutters with adrenaline. If Bill was right, apparently the Drackon likes to hang around a lake. I've just found a lake, but no Drackon.

_Yet._

I turn the contraption the Doctor gave me, the Psychic Reverberator, looking for some hint as to how to apply it. It's just a strange little octagonal piece of metal, no buttons to press, or anything.

The water sloshes a little more intensely and I struggle to focus on finding the source. I can only see ripples glowing dimly in the starlight, until some bubbles rise to the top, illuminated by a fiery iridescence. All of the sudden, something blasts out of the water and I'm immediately drenched. I screech in displeasure, the freezing water almost painful against my already freezing body. I can see the Drackon flapping its wings quickly to hover in the air. I hear it snarl, and embers glowing between its fangs reveal its exact position. The embers light up the hatred in its blue eyes.

"Now now now, hold on, wait just a second!" I yell, and fumble to get the Psychic Reverberator into my ear. The Drackon swoops down to alight heavily in front of me, its four claw-decorated paws digging into the lakeshore. It prowls forward, its wings flared behind it as a classic intimidation method; Making itself look even bigger than it already is.

I finally get the bugger to stay in my ear and I hear a series of slight beeping. A green light flashes out of my ear.

_I really hope that means it'll work._

I turn all of my attention to the Drackon, and find that its horned face, with my arrow tip still lodged in it, is a mere foot from mine, its jaw opening to the exact height of my head.

_Wait. Please, just wait._

The Drackon freezes. Its mouth is literally about to enclose my head, I can feel its teeth on my scalp. Its sulfurous breath heats my face, and I cringe, fully expecting a quick yet painful end.

It pulls away and snaps its jaw closed in front of my face. The beast regards me warily, then breathes in, its mouth glowing with flames. I shut my eyes, dropping to the sandy ground to at least try to duck. But I find myself not ablaze, not burning alive. The tree behind me is, though, and I can feel the heavenly warmth rolling off of it in waves.

I open my eyes to see the Drackon watching me, its eyes deep pools of swirling blue. It sits down on its hind legs, completely folding its wings, and cocks its horned head.

"You are speaking." It says, and I jump in surprise at the booming voice in my head. A female voice, angry and scratchy, yet somehow melodic. It's almost like every word has a chord of pleasant musical notes associated with it.

_Long story, but yes. I can speak to you. Hi. Hello. You are so very frightening. Oh, I didn't mean to think that. Sorry, I can't really filter my thoughts, I guess. Oops, you probably think I'm a blathering idiot now-_

"I think," The Drackon thunders, baring its teeth a bit, "that you are just another vile ape-child, thinking of nothing but your own preservation. You are the ape who did this to me."

She lowers her eyes towards her cheek, strange silver liquid oozing out from under it.

_I did. I did kind of shoot you in the face. But I'm very sorry, truly I am, because as soon as I did it, as soon as I let that arrow go, I knew I'd made a mistake. _

I think of how I felt when I'd heard her cry of pain, and I know the Drackon understands it as well. Everything I think, the Drackon can hear.

_I should've listened to the Doctor in my head, I should have put my weapon down. You might not have attacked had I done that, right?_

"No, I would have killed you. Just as I will kill you now. You could not help me then, and you cannot help me now, Psychic Reverberator or not." She says, standing up to circle me, her four paws noiseless on the sand.

_No, nope, no killing please, because you see, you're not understanding. I can help you, we can help you, my… friend and I. Ever heard of a Time Lord?_

The Drackon chortles, smoke billowing out of her nostrils as she continues to circle me. The flames from the tree reflect in her pearly scales, giving her an ethereal glow.

"Time Lords. Every creature across the stars has heard of Time Lords. The self-proclaimed watchers over the universe, of all time and space. Extinct now, though, due to their own arrogance. The hatcher of my egg used to tell terrifying stories of the Time Lords, to frighten my hatchmates into being obedient…" She pauses in her death march around me, fixing her strangely multi-pupiled eyes upon me, "I'm not afraid of Time Lords anymore, and I don't see what a bumbling ape like you has to do with one either."

_He's- Oh, screw it, I'll just show you._

I think of the Doctor's wounded expression, the tremble of his hands as they gripped mine when he told me of the Time War. Of what he'd had to do...

I remember his regeneration, the scent of my skin burning on his.

I think of him working the T.A.R.D.I.S, and hearing the sound of the time vortex swirling around us.

I once again see the Madroons on Kleo, scampering away from him in fear with every single movement he made.

_My friend… He's a Time Lord. The last Time Lord. He's brilliant, and powerful, and he would be delighted to help you, if I could just find him. We got separated and… _

My thoughts quickly spiral out of my control into an emotional garble of worry.

_Oh, just tell me he's alright. Tell me you haven't maimed him. Or burnt him to a crisp, or ripped him up in pieces like Bill said you did to his friends. Because he's your last hope for whatever you need. And he's… He's my everything… Well, I guess I know he's okay, because technically, I just saw him but…_

_Oh, please be okay._

The Drackon's pupils get so large that her eyes appear nearly black.

"A Time Lord? The lanky ape that refused to quit squawking, that was a Time Lord?" She exclaims, her voice in my head louder than anything I've ever heard.

_Yes. That was the Doctor. My Doctor, and if you've laid a paw on him…_

I briefly picture myself sending another arrow into the Drackon's face, and she lifts her head, staring down her snout at me with amusement.

"You are a strange ape-child. Terrified of me one moment, threatening me the next." She says, and when she lowers her horned head, slinking towards me, I grip the bow on my back and an arrow.

_Protecting the ones we love can make any ape-child so much fiercer than a Drackon._

I know she's going for the kill when she opens her fanged mouth, and I move as quickly as I can, nocking an arrow into the bow and pulling the string back. But I'm too late.

She grips my arm with her teeth, and I feel my skin pop through my coat as the dagger-like fangs pierce it. The bow drops from my hand, and before I know it I am tossed into the air, like a ragdoll. Below me, I see the Drackon flapping her magnificent wings, rising to meet me when I start to fall. I land on a few of her spinal horns, and they dig into my body like knives. Luckily, they aren't sharp enough to cut.

_OUCH, OW, you're making a huge mistake, Drackon! We're the only living things- OH HOLY BEJESUS THIS HURTS- within a billion miles who would willingly help you! What the hell do you need anyway- OKAY BLEEDING THROUGH MY COAT NOW, OUCH._

"Oh, for the sake of Argnath the Ravager, will you please shut your puny mind up? It's like listening to a rodent chatter in my brain." The Drackon groans in my head, and I use my good arm to drag myself into a sitting position between some of her horns. "I'm taking you to your Time Lord."

My brain pauses, stock still for just a moment.

_The Doctor is okay._

Peace settles my thoughts. I am shivering violently now, the water in my hair quickly turning to ice as the Drackon flies above the tree tops. I slide back and forth as her wings work to propel us into the night sky. My numb hand grips the spinal spike in front of me.

_Well, you couldn't have done it a little less violently? Nearly ripped my arm off… You never answered my question, either. I wonder, are all Drackons this rude?_

The Drackon growls deep in her chest, rumbling beneath me, and smoke pours out of her nostrils, flying back into my face.

"I am stranded on this planet. An experiment back on my own went horribly wrong. The last thing I remember is every single glass object in my lab exploding, and then I was here. Here, on this desolate and primitive planet. Not a single ounce of useful technology to be seen." Her voice is laced with disgust. She banks slightly to the left, causing me to scramble to maintain my balance with my shuddering muscles. "I've been here for weeks."

_If you're a scientist, I'd hate to meet one of the Drackon soldiers…_

The Drackon lets out one of her chortling laughs.

"Indeed, little ape. It would be a short and unpleasant meeting for you."

_Figured… So, you met the Doctor already, then? _

"Yes, an excitable and garrulous ape. He amused me."

An image of the Drackon laying on her back, tossing the Doctor in the air like a ball of yarn flashes through my mind.

"Similar enough." The Drackon says simply. I have stopped shivering now, which is a very, very bad sign. My mind wanders at that realization, not caring that the beast can hear everything.

_Advanced stages of hypothermia. Should have grabbed a better coat. Ouch, my arm. _

_The Doctor's smile. The silken orange sheets of my bed. A blistering hot shower. A newly-showered Doctor not bothering to cover himself._

_Oh, wow, that's actually humiliating. Think of something else, quick._

_Hot chocolate._

_I can't believe I'm flying on a dragon right now._

"Drackon, little ape. Not dragon. And would you mind exercising a little self-control? Your lack thereof is embarrassing. My people would never dream of being so uncouth."

_We're not called apes, we're humans. Hu-mans! Got it, snapdragon? Also any chance we're almost to the Doctor? It's just a bit chilly…_

"Actually… yes." The Drackon says, and dips her wing so suddenly and so drastically that I slide off. My breath catches in my throat.

Just like that, I am flailing in the air, free falling into the canopy of the forest. Branches slow my fall, at the expense of my poor body. A branch smacks into my chest, another hooks my leg, causing me to flip.

And then I land in the snow, face first, for at least the third time today.

_I… hate… WINTER._


	33. Freya the Bright

"Hello? Drackon? Come back for a little more fun, have you? Told you I'd still be here, just 'hanging around'. Oh, I am a comedic genius, Evy would love that one, oh yes!" I hear the Doctor's voice, sounding strained, and I heave myself up from the ground slowly. My entire body aches, and my arm is throbbing around the bite of the Drackon.

"Funny you should say that." I grunt, dusting the snow off of me, concentrating on keeping my breathing regular. The hypothermia is really starting to get to me now.

"Evy! OH, I'd kiss you if I could right now. I knew you'd be alright, great outdoorswoman such as yourself! Still, nice to know, you know?" I hear his voice coming from above me. The Drackon swoops through the branches without so much as rustling a single one, alighting next to me. She burns yet another tree, and I look up to see the Doctor in the light of the flames.

_'Just hanging around'. Oh my God, that preposterous man._

He's hanging by one foot, dangling like a tantalizing toy for the Drackon by the slip knot trap. His coat is shredded and charred in a few places, and he's got scratches all over his face, not too deep, but not painless either. He gives me a little wave.

"Nice of you to 'drop in'. HA!" He shouts, and I notice that his face is very red. All of the blood must be just pooling in that quirky Time Lord brain of his, making him lightheaded and loopy.

"Very funny, yes, hilarious," I tell him, and he grins happily, "Drackon, do you mind?"

"Oh, but he's so much more fun this way!" She says, chortling, and blows fire at the Doctor. I freak out for a second, until I see that she's only burned the rope above him. It takes a minute to burn through, and then he drops into the snow, standing up immediately, his eyes wide and mad as he stumbles about. I help steady him as the blood slowly drains from his head, and he takes a deep breath.

"Now, that's much better. Liked my jokes, did you?" He says, and sweeps me into a hug. I hiss in pain when he squeezes my arm, and he pulls away quickly, his eyes only now taking in what must be a very bedraggled appearance. He frowns, his hands lightly lifting my arm to see the darker red stain on the wine fabric of my coat.

"I'm alright. Bigger matters to attend to, Doctor…" I say, nodding my head to the Drackon, trying to ease the concern in his eyes away.

_The quicker we get this over with, the quicker we're back on the T.A.R.D.I.S, no time for a rant from the crazy alien._

"You can bash me, beat me, scratch me, bite me, burn me, but the second you lay a claw on Evy… Now that is what can be classified as a grave mistake, Drackon."

The Drackon seems to understand the Doctor, lifting her head indignantly.

"It is not my fault that ape bodies are frail and feeble." She says, snorting smoke out of her nostrils testily.

_Wait, why do I need a Psychic Reverberator, but he doesn't?_

"All thy neighbor knows, so you shall know. It is the Drackon way." She says, and I just nod.

_Hearing him through me, got it._

"Um… she says that it isn't her fault humans are weak." I say, and the Doctor raises an eyebrow at me in surprise.

"Are you just assuming, or…?" He says.

"No, I can hear her. It's… a strange story. Can we just get to the point? I'm soaked to the bone and perhaps literally freezing my butt off." I say, and the Doctor rests his angry eyes upon the Drackon.

"And what is the point?" The Doctor gestures at me to remove my coat, unbuttoning his own, and I hesitate.

"No, you need it, the point is pointless if we're both spiraling into hypothermia, Doctor."

The Drackon huffs impatiently, flaring her wings a bit.

I won't remove my icy coat, so the Doctor does it for me. His deft hands undo the buttons and slide the coat over my shoulders. I protest weakly, only because I do so want to have feeling in my limbs again.

"Your lips are blue. The point is pointless if you die." He says, and holds his own coat out for me to slide my arms through, bloody or not. The self-regulated temperature of the coat happens to be blazing hot, apparently, and it feels like my skin is being branded. My nerve endings explode painfully.

"Yowza, that is one heck of a temperature difference!" I shout, my skin crawling as it adjusts, and finally the Doctor turns his attention to the Drackon. The beast bristles under his gaze, her white scales shifting all down her body.

"So, what _is_ the point? What's your name then? And why are you on Earth?" The Doctor's voice is stony, irritated.

"I am Freya, Time Lord. Freya the Bright. I was attempting to stabilize the electromagnetic absorption regulator on a damaged model of an Auroran Spatial-"

"Hold on, hold on! Okay, her name is Freya the Bright and she was um… stabilizing the…"

I go blank.

_I don't even understand any of this jargon, I'm a biologist at heart, not a physicist! And I'm definitely not a messenger pigeon!_

"Okay, you know what, I'm just going to give you this, and you can talk to her about your Quantum Mechanics, or Astrophysics, or whatever, how about it?" I say, removing the Psychic Reverberator from my ear, hearing it beep, and handing it to the Doctor. He stares at it suspiciously, as if it might attack him.

"Where did you get this?"

_"Remember that time can be rewritten. You just remember that, you beautiful, brilliant human."_

"A strange, kindly sort of fellow, a Mr. Fine. He just handed it to me and then he was gone." I say, shrugging my shoulders. The Doctor stares at me, his expression unfathomable. Then he looks at the tiny metal octagonal prism in his hand.

"This is a Psychic Reverberator, from its composition, I'd say it's not even of this galaxy." He says in wonder, and I nod quickly.

"Yeah, I assumed as much. Stranger things have happened, now, can we get on with the talking and the getting back to the T.A.R.D.I.S?" I say, waving a hand at him. His eyes remain on me, studying me for something, as he puts the Reverberator into his ear. A green light flashes, just as it had for me, and all of the sudden the Drackon lets out a piercing wail.

She throws her head to the ground, writhing and twisting as if in horrible pain. The noises coming out of her maw are absolutely haunting and so full of terror that adrenaline instinctively pulses through my veins. The Doctor flounders, then yanks the Reverberator out of his ear, his expression shocked.

"Right, should have thought of that. My mind is laced with the time vortex, full of everything that ever was, ever could be…" His face darkens, and he just holds his hand out to me, offering the Reverberator back. "It's not really meant to be shared with anyone but another Time Lord."

The Drackon, Freya, is breathing heavily, her blue eyes squeezed shut. Her wings are curled about her protectively, and in that moment, she looks harmless. Completely harmless. I almost want to give her a hug.

_I would if I didn't want to keep my head attached to my body, that is._

I pop the Reverberator into my ear, the green light flashes, and I can hear Freya's thoughts.

"So much pain, too much life, too much death, too many to comprehend. Where am I among all of this chaos?" Her voice's melodic quality now sounds like a dissonant cacophony of sound. Remnants of what she'd seen swirl through her mind. Creatures I've never seen before, and places I've never heard of, and Freya herself in some kind of battle armor, looking frightened and small. There are other things, dark things that taste like death, things that I can't understand.

_Hey, it's alright. Just calm down, remember yourself, remember what you are, who you are. _

_I'm here, darling. _

_Hush, and forget all of that. It isn't real, not truly._

My thoughts come out more motherly than intended, but I can feel Freya respond to it, and my access to her thoughts becomes smaller and smaller until I know she has full control again.

She has stopped trembling, and folds her wings back, letting out a sulfurous breath.

"I apologize. That was…"

_Uncouth?_

She lifts one side of her mouth into a half-hearted snarl when I smirk at her.

"Yes."

_SO, now that we're all sorted, let's continue with this unorthodox little meeting of ours! You were saying you were trying to fix a thingamabobber?_

"An Auroran Spatial-"

_Let's skip the jargon, what do you need from us, hmm?_

I feel the twang of annoyance echo through her easily irritated mind.

"What I need is transportation, through space, not time. A Time Lord outside of Gallifrey always has a T.A.R.D.I.S, we learned that when we were small. An amazing conglomerate of their exquisite technology, the T.A.R.D.I.S's were a wonder of the universe…"

_That she is! Not sure we'll be able to fit you through the door, but we'll do our very best for you, if not for old Bill Hatcher. Whatever the reason, you need to leave Earth. And I need to be back on the T.A.R.D.I.S, where there aren't any seasons trying to kill me._

The Drackon's feathered tail wags slightly, like an excited puppy's.

"So you'll help me, even after I injured you and humiliated your Time Lord?" She says, her voice hesitant.

_Ohmygosh, that's adorable, that tail thing you're doing. Sorry, still horrible at filtering my thoughts._

_Yes, of course we'll help, that's what we do. We help. Now let's get a move on. The quicker you're home, the better for everyone. Right, Doctor?_

"Right, Doctor?"

He just looks up from the sonic screwdriver, with which he had been fiddling.

"Right, what?"

"Oh… Forgot you couldn't hear… all of that. It's funky, this telepathy. It really takes some getting used to," I say with a weak grin. "Basically, we're going to give Freya a quick ride on the T.A.R.D.I.S back to…"

_What planet are you from?_

"Adalstok. The Calderone galaxy, present time." Freya says happily.

"Adalstok, present day. Calderone galaxy! Allons-y!" I shout, the thought of being back in my warm, silky orange bed exciting me beyond reason.

"You just- That's my phrase! What, you think it's okay just to steal people's words, like it's nothing?" The Doctor teases, returning my excited smile. "Alright, as the lady says, allons-y!"

Freya lets out a delighted bugle, spreads her wings, and bounds towards us. She slips her slender neck between my legs, and then the Doctor's, and before we know it we are rocketing above the tree line, into the black and starry night. I wrap my good arm around the Doctor's torso, for fear of falling over backwards. He holds a hand over mine, his other gripping the horn in front of him.

_Head to Bill's trading post, southbound on a little dirt road, it's-_

"I know of it." Freya says, and dips her wing to turn us to the right a bit, and I snuggle myself into the Doctor's back, both for support and protection from the biting wind.

"We're flying on a dragon!" The Doctor shouts above the wind, his voice absolutely childish and ecstatic.

"Drackon!" Freya and I say at the same time, and the Doctor just shakes his head, letting out a whooping shout.

_My own personal white hell, and still I can't help but smile. As long as the Doctor is here, how can I not?_


	34. A Drackon's Omen

After several minutes of flying, I feel the Doctor shivering in front of me. He's probably freezing with just that tight suit of his. He has stopped whooping and shouting, and is now just trying his best to hold on for dear life. I suppose the novelty of flying wears off pretty quickly when you can't feel your face anymore.

At last, Freya dips down, flapping her powerful wings a few times to alight upon the now hardened mud road. I can see light coming from the trading post up ahead, a few flickering lamps from Bill's house. The forge in the blacksmith's is still roaring with fire, as well.

_The T.A.R.D.I.S is somewhere down the road and to the right, off in the woods a bit._

She rumbles deep in her chest, an acknowledgement, and begins to walk down the road with us still on her back. It feels strangely similar to riding a horse.

_Except for the scaly, folded wings bumping me in the back with every step. That's new._

Once we get closer, I can feel trepidation in the back of Freya's mind. Her steps slow as we pass the stable. I can see Eliza III in her stall, looking just as terrified as the other prancing, snorting horses.

Freya jumps under us when a horse kicks the walls of its wooden stall.

"Eliza III! You're on strike three, young lady, I'll not have another one of your panic attacks!" The Doctor whispers to the horses, and I roll my eyes, then reach down to pat Freya's side.

_You alright? Not scared of a few sleeping humans, are you?_

"I do not fear the ape-children!" She says, a bit too quickly, "They are simply unpleasant to deal with in numbers. They swarm like stinging insects."

_Well, there's only two of them here, at most. And as long as we hurry, they won't even know we came through._

At that, she begins to trot forward, craning her neck to hiss at the horses, who are becoming louder and louder.

Just as we pass the house, Freya's paws noiselessly carrying us closer and closer to safety, the door slams open, and there he stands. Bill Hatcher, in all his frontiersman glory, complete with shotgun and unnecessarily long, serrated knife in his belt.

"What in the name of Sam Hill is this?" He shouts, and Freya whips her tail around to square herself in his direction, jerking us about. I fall off at the sudden movement, but the Doctor manages to hang on. Bill cocks his gun, aiming it at Freya and the Doctor. Freya flares her wings behind her, showing him her rows of sharp teeth.

"This must look a little strange, the people who promised to capture the dragon… riding the dragon… but I promise that this is exactly what you want to happen." The Doctor says, and I scramble up from the hard ground, ignoring the fact that I had landed on my arm.

_Ouch. Again._

"Ya'll were supposed to kill the damn thing, not domesticate it! It's not some trick pony you can train, you damn stupid Brit, that monster killed eight men!"

"You don't understand, and maybe if we weren't staring down two barrels of instant death, we'd be able to explain." The Doctor says but Bill doesn't budge.

"Okay, okay listen, we told you we'd been at this a long time, and we have. But, the fact is we aren't exactly trappers. We're… We help the creatures, we don't capture them. You want the dragon gone, the dragon wants to be gone, too. We're just passing through, so if you'll just let us go…" I say, holding my hands up in surrender when he aims the gun at me.

"Don't you point that thing at her. What's she going to do anyway, talk you to death? Just put the gun away, Bill, you're embarrassing yourself." The Doctor says, his voice stormy like it gets when he's furious. He swings his leg over Freya's back, and comes to stand next to me. I give him a grateful smile when Bill lowers the shotgun, and the Doctor just takes my hand. His skin is freezing.

Freya prowls over to us as well, planting her huge, pearly body in front of us like a shield. The Doctor looks surprised.

"You are my only chance of getting home. I will gleefully kill this ape if he threatens you again." She tells me, her voice sounding like warning bells in my head.

"Okay, Freya- the dragon, she's getting a little antsy. We just need to take her away, and then you'll never see us again. I promise. You'll have your forest back, you can murder animals to your little heart's delight-"

A blast rings out from behind us, and Freya stumbles in front of us, her wings flaring out wildly, letting out a horrid, wheezing roar. I whip around to see the blacksmith, his hood down, standing a few yards away with a rifle in his hand. His blue eyes are wide, afraid.

"What have you done?" I scream, rushing him, and yanking the gun out of his hands. I plant a powerful smack across his face, and he looks very, very confused. "You moron, she wasn't harming anyone! Feel proud of yourself, do you?"

Anger courses through me, some of it mine, some of it Freya's.

The blacksmith's mouth opens and closes rapidly, not a single word of apology or explanation uttered.

I chuck the gun into the tree line, and it disappears into the deep snow.

When I turn back, Freya is trying to stand up. Her wings are still flailing about, trying to acquire some semblance of balance. The Doctor is at her side, examining the entrance wound. Silvery blood is coursing out of the bullet hole, a few scales surrounding it having been blown off.

"My left two lungs and my third flight bladder are punctured. I need all of my flight bladders functional in order to fly… It is a crime punishable by death on my planet to maim another Drackon's flight organs. The human will die for what he has done." Freya snarls in my mind, yet she can't seem to stay standing. Her breaths are hoarse and wheezing, and despite her usually impeccable control, I can feel echoes of the pain she is feeling. It feels like we are suffocating and being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Every breath is agony.

_No one else is dying, okay? We humans really do become true apes when we're frightened, I suppose… He didn't know. What we need to do is get you to the T.A.R.D.I.S and get you home. They'll know better how to help you than anyone here._

"No exit wound, the bullet must be lodged somewhere within the chest cavity. The longer it stays there, the more extensive the damage… C'mon, ladies, we're leaving. Rotten company, these two are." The Doctor says, his voice low. He places himself under one of Freya's wings, and his tall shoulders help to stabilize her a little.

"I'm not leaving until that little pest is a puddle of-"

_Freya it's now or never, you've been here long enough. Just let it go, you proud, flying gecko._

A furious flame erupts from her panting mouth, but she slowly turns with the Doctor's help to start gimping down the road, towards the T.A.R.D.I.S.

I start after them, but I halt after a few steps. There's something I want to do first. Something I need to do.

I march up to Bill, yanking the Reverberator out of my ear. It beeps, and he looks at it warily.

"You make a living off of the animals of this forest, I understand that, Bill. But I'd like you to know, to really understand, that maybe some of these creatures you murder aren't as simple as you think."

"You just stay away, y'hear?" He says, and I realize that he is afraid of me. Perhaps he gets the idea that we're not just tourists…

He jerks away when I try to put the little metal device in his ear, but I glower at him, and this time he is still. It flashes green, and his eyes bug out of his head. He stares after Freya, and she cranes her neck to turn to look back at him.

Her eyes are devoid of emotion, and I don't know what she says to him, but whatever it is causes his face to crumple. He claws at the Reverberator, his hands shaky as they shove it back to me.

"Just… Don't come back. I wanna' thank you for what you're doin', and apologize for Ricky, he didn't know what he was doin'. Neither of us knew. But, if you really wanna' help… Don't come back."

"It would be our extreme pleasure never to see this place again." I say, replacing the Reverberator in my own ear, and leaving the two hunters behind me. I slip myself under Freya's warm wing, and hold it up with my hands, as high as I can. I'm not as lucky as the Doctor to be so conveniently tall.

Freya is silent. So is the Doctor. So is the world around us. I remember how it had looked when we first arrived. All crystal and purity, the white cushioning the world as a soft blanket. The sun brought loveliness to whatever it touched.

But the night is empty and vicious, devoid of anything beautiful. In the darkness, things that seemed beautiful in the light can turn nightmarish.

_A human works the same way. In the sun, we are easily light. In the dark, we are easily night._

_It's simple to be good and do the right thing, until the occasion really calls for it, until the darkness around us threatens to join with the darkness inside. _

I glance across Freya's chest at the Doctor. He has a perpetual frown on his face, not angry so much as disappointed. So very disappointed.

"Your Doctor, I am not ashamed to say that I fear him. He is a Time Lord, and he has lived up to the tales of my childhood. In his mind, I saw the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds… Yet he is also noble, and gentle, a combination of qualities that are rare on my planet." Freya finally says, and I smile.

_Yes, he is quite-_

"It will get him killed," She says, and a chill of cold dread runs up my spine, "Mark my words, little one. I've seen it a hundred times. The gentle ones live. The brave ones live. But not his kind. He will perish in his uniqueness…"

_No._

The ferocity of the thought surprises even me.

_Not him. Never him. I'm going to change that._

"To change his fate, you must change the Time Lord himself." She says, and I refuse to answer her, allowing my mind to spiral into incoherent clutter. It's just as well, because…

_I spy a little blue box._

"There she is! Did you miss us, old girl?" The Doctor says, slipping out from under Freya's wing to unlock the door. "Home sweet T.A.R.D.I.S!"


	35. Empty Spaces That Can't Be Filled

"This is a T.A.R.D.I.S? The amalgamation of millions of years of Gallifreyan research and development… This puny box?" Freya says, giving me a long, confused stare, "I couldn't fit my paw in there, let alone my entire body!"

"Well, what are you waiting for, come on in, where it's warm! She might be a little uneasy about having a Drackon in the console room, but she'll settle down, no worries." The Doctor says from inside.

"Doctor, there's the matter of actually getting Freya through the doors to consider…" I call, and after a moment he pops his head out.

"What part of 'Time Lord technology' is so hard for people to understand? It's a doorway, it does what it's supposed to do, it lets things in and out! Size doesn't matter!"

"That's debatable…" I mutter, and Freya lets out a wheezing chortle. I giggle a little with her.

_Oh, I can't tell you how tickled I am that dirty jokes are universal._

"What was that?" The Doctor says, giving us a suspicious, narrow-eyed look. I just give him a wink and slip out from under Freya's wing. I walk into the T.A.R.D.I.S., gesturing for Freya to follow. She uses the tips of her wings to balance herself now, the shock of being shot wearing off a little. She's no longer trembling with fury and fear.

She walks forward warily, closing her eyes as she reaches the doorway. The wall around her warps strangely, practically forming around her body perfectly. And just like that, a Drackon is in the console room. I have her sit on the grated floor, and she does so, curling her tail around her ever so elegantly, even shot and bleeding.

Her eyes rove the room around her in awe and excitement. A deep bell sound rings out, and the console starts beeping shrilly.

"Yes, yes I know, she's fine. She's a… friend. We're just taking her home, back to where she belongs, and then everything will be back to normal, I promise." The Doctor says, pushing buttons and stroking the console just like he did that horse from earlier today.

The alarms turn off and the Doctor lets out a breath, clapping his hands together and turning his attention to Freya. Her ragged breathing is now the only sound to fill the room.

"So, Adalstok. The Calderone galaxy, spatial coordinates 378, 193.6, and 984.2!"

"Tell him my home lies on the terrestrial continent of Jorna, and that it is called Clarria." She says, and I relay her message. The Doctor nods, asking her a few questions about coordinates that I don't quite understand. I just relay back and forth obliviously.

"Okay!" The Doctor yells, punching in the coordinates they had agreed upon and tossing back levers. "Bet you're good and ready to go home? Shot in the face, hunted for weeks, stranded on a level three planet…"

Freya nods her large head up and down in vehement agreement, and at that the Doctor sends us careening into the vortex. Freya's open-mouthed, awe-inspired reaction to this would be almost cute, if her teeth weren't so terrifying.

When the Doctor opens the doors, my own jaw drops in wonder.

_It's… Simply amazing, Freya. No wonder you wanted to get back home so badly._

Through the doors, I see jagged mountains cutting through the clouds in the distance. Immediately in front of us lies a field of blue, curly plants. They look soft, like cotton. A shining city rises in the middle of the field, seemingly made of diamond or some other gemstone, and I can see other Drackons flying around it in the deep grey sky. They're all different colors, the Drackons are. Iridescent purple, deep red, glittering gold, emerald green.

Freya stumbles in her hurry to get out of the doors, and once she's in the field of blue cotton, she spreads her wings, only to immediately fall to the ground. Puffs of blue fly out from around her collapsed body.

A pathetic bugle of desperation erupts from her jaws.

The Doctor rushes over to her, and I follow suit. He crouches in front of her face, and I realize that my arrow is still imbedded in her cheek. The silver blood has scabbed over into a dark grey.

"You really shouldn't be moving so much. Come back in to the T.A.R.D.I.S and I can get us closer to the city," He offers, starting to get under her wing to help her out. She shakes her head, and simply lets out several more of those piercing bellows.

A few moments pass, until I can hear a reply. Many replies, actually. Some of the colorful dots flying around the city turn our way, getting bigger and bigger each second.

"Long distance vocal communication, very effective, very quick. Who needs cell phones when you've got a vocal range like that, yeah? Brilliant." The Doctor says, gently setting her wing down, and stepping to her side. I move to stand next to him, and he places his hand on my waist comfortably, drawing me nearer. I smile at him happily, and he returns it, beaming proudly at me.

Freya turns to gaze at us, gratitude in her crystal blue eyes.

"Thank you, both of you. I will tell every creature I know new stories, of a Time Lord named The Doctor, and his life-mate Evy the Human, who helped a Drackon against better judgment, out of the kindness of their hearts." She says, and I don't even bother to correct her about the 'life-mate' thing. She knows.

"Drackon young ones will no longer have nightmares of the Time Lords, they will no longer see them in every shadow of their caves at night. I will make sure of that." She continues, and I smile, tears pricking at my eyes, because he deserves that so very much. He deserves to be the one to redeem the horrors of his people's past.

I relay her message, and he smiles, bowing his head a little to her.

"It was quite the adventure, Freya the Bright." He says, and releases my waist, turning back towards the T.A.R.D.I.S, but whips around again, so very quickly.

The action reminds me of his future self, and another chill runs through my veins.

"As for that Auroran Spatial Disk, you've got a loose connection in the Ether Epicyle Distorter, that's what caused the implosion, yes implosion, not explosion, of your lab instruments you saw when you activated the Disk. Tighten that up a bit, replace the Ether, and you'll be good to go!"

With that, he turns away, leaving me to say goodbye to Freya. The other Drackons, several of them now, are much closer, and I can vaguely hear their minds calling out to Freya's, and thus, mine as well.

"No human has ever been astride the back of a Drackon." Freya says, stretching out her head towards me, "I am glad that you are the first."

I lift my hand to place it gently upon her scaly snout.

"So am I…" I say out loud, and I make sure she feels the bittersweet emotion swirling in my mind. She closes her eyelids in understanding.

With that, I take out the Psychic Reverberator, sharply feeling her absence in my head, as well as the absence of all of the approaching Drackons. I give her a smile before turning away, back into the T.A.R.D.I.S. The last thing I hear of Freya is a joyful heralding roar, a greeting to all of her fellow Drackons.

The Doctor sends us back into the vortex, and I lean against the railing, still holding the Psychic Reverberator in my palm.

"Think we'll just orbit Nebula G-545 for the night." He mutters, and then he is also leaning on the railing next to me. "You alright?"

"Yeah. I'm better than alright, actually. It's just strange, having another being in your head for hours… I miss her already." I say, and he nods, understanding lighting his golden eyes.

"I know the feeling."

"You do? Why is that, did Time Lords use Psychic Reverberators or… something like that?" I ask, and he shakes his head, a forlorn little smile upon his lips.

"No, no need for that. Time Lords can have a sort of low level telepathy with one another. It intensifies the more time they spend together. So, best friends, lovers, husbands and wives, families, their minds were often almost interlaced, layered, one over the other. Like holding hands."

"That's beautiful," I whisper, glad that he can't feel the pang of sorrow shoot through my heart at hearing this.

_The loss of his people to this Time War must run so deeply, so much further down than I even know. Not just their deaths, but them being changed in such horrid ways by the death and destruction…_

_ I can never give him what he should have. No one can…_

He grins, but it doesn't touch his eyes, not even a little, and takes my hand. He brings it up, planting a kiss on it.

"I'm so very glad to have you, Miss Crenshaw." He says, but I know he means more than just that. I can see it sparkling, the depth of emotion in his eyes.

I don't blush. This is no place for a blush.

I just snake my good arm around his neck and hug him, holding him for a very long time. He holds me back gratefully. He always seems so grateful for a hug.

When I pull away, I see that he is pinching the Psychic Reverberator between two of his fingers, examining it closely. I open my hand, bewildered that he'd managed to snatch it without me even noticing.

"Hey! That's-"

"From another galaxy and time period, so how did you really get a hold of this, then?" His eyes are intent upon searching mine, and it makes me squirm uncomfortably.

_Oh, god, I really am a terrible liar…_

So I decide to not lie.

"I got it from a man. I definitely didn't recognize his face, but he called himself Mr. Fine. He told me I would need it, and then he handed it to me and was gone. I can't tell you much else, really. It happened quickly." I say nonchalantly, and he just watches me for a few more moments. Then he slips it into one of his suit pockets, bursting with energy once again.

"Very well, let's get you patched up! Should've been first on our list, really, Drackon bacteria, nasty stuff." He says, and leaves the console room. Before I can even follow him, he's back with a wet orange cloth, a tube of white pasty lotion, and what looks like a white bandage. He squeezes some of the lotion onto a large gauze pad, and I slide out of his coat to offer up my arm to him. The bite is heavily inflamed now, red and blotchy. Dried blood runs all down my arm.

He uses the wet cloth to clean the bite up a bit, then he positions the gigantic gauze above the wound.

"Won't sting at all. Well… Maybe a little… Well…"

Then he presses it down, and pain erupts all up my arm, making me jolt and yelp a little.

"Maybe a lot, sorry." He says, and then deftly wraps it up in the white bandage material, tying it off at the end.

"So, I was going to take a scalding hot shower, to, you know… burn any memory of our wintery adventure out of my mind. Can I keep it on for that?" I ask, really hoping he says yes.

_If I don't have instant heat in about 5 minutes, I'm going to throw a temper tantrum…_

"Oh yeah, sure! I figured you'd want to do that. This is Aquarian cotton, completely water-proof. I'll change it in the morning for you, though."

"Oh thank you thank you," I say, practically running past him, "I call first shower!"

* * *

**A/N**

**Hey guys, just wanted to thank you again, also to shamelessly beg for reviews. Gimme some feedback! What do you like, what do you not like, do you have any suggestions or something you'd like written into the story, more fluff, less fluff, more danger, less danger? What are we talkin' bout here? **

**Once again, I love you all and you make me smile above everything right now :]**

**Lots of love,**

**-A.**


	36. The Day Off

The coffee-maker beeps obnoxiously, rousing me from the book I've got my nose stuck in. I found it in a room the T.A.R.D.I.S let me in the night before, after my glorious shower. Obviously a library, filled to the brim with books from all of time and space. At random, I picked up a love story about two cyborgs, shunned by society in the most brutal of ways, both lonely little creatures, and I've been hooked. They find companionship in one another, learning that you're only as alone as you make yourself.

_Tugs at my heart strings, it really does._

I set it on its spine and stand up from the T.A.R.D.I.S's kitchen table. My fingers press the series of buttons that causes the coffee to spurt into the blue mug. It says '#1 Cosmic Ray Analyst' on it.

I begin to hum a little tune, watching the coffee slowly drip its way out of the machine, feeling rather smug.

_I can find mugs and cups and plates, and even make coffee on my own. I'd say I know my way around the kitchen now._

Still humming, I spin my way to a cabinet across the room, my flannel green nightgown twirling out around me. I open the door, snatch up the delightful creamer stuff from 2089 Sweden, and spin back to my coffee.

"Well, you're a bit more chipper this morning." I hear the Doctor's voice from the doorway, and I look up to give him a smirk.

His hair is even more tousled than usual, his voice a tad scratchy from sleep.

_And I do so love to see a Doctor is his jammies._

"So much to be chipper about! My arm is nearly healed already, we're not freezing to death slowly, we can go somewhere that doesn't even _have_ a winter… Things are looking up, you know." I say, stirring in the creamer, and lifting the mug to my lips.

"No winter this time, got it. I know exactly where we're going. For once, we'll have a nice, relaxing, danger-free day. I'm sure of it." The Doctor says. With a skeptical look, I take it back to the table, and the Doctor goes about scavenging for breakfast. I pick up my book, humming once again, taking a sip of coffee every once in a while.

"Hold the phone, keep humming! Don't stop!" He suddenly shouts in my ear, so loudly it causes me to drop the mug mid-sip. It clatters on the table, spewing coffee everywhere. All over my nightgown, my book, the table, the floor.

I get to my feet quickly, bumping into the Doctor, who is standing unnecessarily close behind me.

"Why'd you have to shout like that? Now I'm wearing my breakfast, thanks a lot! Can you ever just speak normally?" I say angrily, snatching an orange towel off of the counter and dabbing at my gown.

"Sorry, sorry just keep humming. That song." He says, and when I finally take a look at him, I realize that maybe something is wrong. Very wrong. His eyes are wide, recognition and something akin to dread swirling in them.

"You okay? Do you know this song or something?" I ask, putting the towel down and focusing on him, a hand on my hip.

"Do you?" He shoots back, raising one thick eyebrow.

"Of course I do, it's been stuck in my head for days now, it's…." I take a moment to think about it.

_What is it from? It has to be from a movie or something…_

"Actually, now that you mention it, I don't. I don't know that song." I say, and we stare at one another for a moment. He seems very upset by this realization.

"Must be the T.A.R.D.I.S." He says, getting very close, so close I'm feeling a bit uneasy about my coffee-breath now.

"What's the T.A.R.D.I.S have to do with a song in my head?"

"It's simple for her to communicate in song, since it's completely universal, easily interjected into unconscious thought. Every single species in every single galaxy in every single time can understand musical notes."

"Right, okay, but why?" I ask, concentrating on that song in my head. It's beautiful, but seems sad, foreboding.

"Sing it again." He says, "Please."

I open my mouth, but… I can't remember it. It's just gone.

"I've forgotten it. I've completely forgotten it, why would she do that?" I ask, and the Doctor crinkles his nose up.

"Oh, I see how it is, old girl. You'll talk to Evy, but not me." He mutters, and then his face is wiped clean of concern and confusion.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out later, forget the coffee, where we're going there's plenty of food you'd like to eat." He says, smiling a little too widely.

_Something about that song upset him. Badly._

_The T.A.R.D.I.S needed to tell me something that the Doctor couldn't know…_

I feel my heart constrict and my stomach flip at the birth of an idea in my brain.

_Maybe she's trying to help me. Trying to help me help the Doctor…_

I push that thought back for later, and give the Doctor a smile that may be a bit too wide as well.

"Good, because you owe me a cup of coffee, plus interest, you crazy alien."

* * *

The Doctor had been amazed at the healing my skin did overnight. After a sonic session and dabbing the pink scar tissue with that same lotion from last night, he deemed me healed and ready for action. Then, with that he'd told me to dress for swimming.

As in, a swimsuit.

So here I am, swimsuitless, rummaging through the wardrobe for something to swim in. So far, I've found a ridiculous feathery showgirl's outfit, a black and yellow wetsuit, and a skimpy nurse outfit, which might as well be a swimsuit.

I can't even begin to describe the wicked thoughts it gives me.

_The Doctor has nurse lingerie... Do I even want to ask?_

I throw it all down in a huff, knowing the T.A.R.D.I.S will take care of it for me, and bound up the steps to the second level.

A doorway I've never seen has appeared at the top of the stairs, and when I peek my head in, a little laugh of amazement escapes me.

It's a small room, with racks built into the walls, full of all kinds of swimsuits. They all must be brand new, because the smell of synthesized spandex is overwhelming.

I sift through them, and find that they are all my size and definitely my style. There's not a single one that I dislike, making me think the T.A.R.D.I.S is a very smart ship, indeed. She must have handpicked this room, just for me.

"Oh, you are my new best friend. Who's a clever girl?" I say, grabbing several to try on, and the room creaks around me as if in agreement.

After trying on a few, I settle on an old-fashioned looking two piece. It has darling white polka dots scattered across the red fabric, the bottoms high-waisted and settling perfectly just in the curve of my waist. I put on a white sundress of my own as a cover up, fluff my curly hair in the mirror, and decide I'm ready.

The Doctor is sitting on the stool in the console room, waiting ever so patiently.

But he's wearing a suit. One of his typical brown suits, missing his coat, though.

"You're going to have a rough time, swimming in that…" I say, and he looks confused, standing up from the stool to put his hands in his pockets.

"Well, so are you!"

"This is just a cover-up! You know, so I don't have to walk around half naked all day?" I say and he nods, gesturing to his suit.

"So is this! This is my 'cover-up', don't bash it!" He says, and I just chuckle, rolling my eyes at my absurd Time Lord.

And then my face begins to heat, imagining the Doctor taking off all those layers, one by one.

"Um… Right! So, where are we then? Some kind of ocean planet, a futuristic tropical resort, what?" I say clearing my throat and heading towards the doors.

"Better…" He says, bounding ahead of me like an overexcited toddler, "Earth, 1969."

I laugh, not sure if he's serious or not.

"Of all the places…" I say, and he throws the doors open.

"Oi, this is the blue planet! Full to bursting with water, and thus with beaches. Tropical, uninhabited beaches, warm as you like. No winter here not ever." He says, rubbing his hands together as the sunlight blinds us momentarily.

"No place like home, I suppose." I say, grinning at him and I run out of the T.A.R.D.I.S, my bare feet sinking into white-hot sand.

"OH my God, it is warm alright, warmer than the Devil's armpit, I'd say!" I shout, hearing the Doctor's laugh, and make a beeline for the ocean. Once my feet are not on fire, and are gently being lapped at by the salty waves, I take the liberty of looking around.

He's taken us to some tropical island, with tall, lush green trees, similar to Amazonia's foliage, lining the beach. No roads or piers or people to be seen for miles down the beach, in either direction. It's just our blue box, the Doctor, and me… And a crystal clear ocean, stretching for hundreds of miles into the horizon until it meshes with the clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight.

A light breeze cools my skin pleasantly, but I still want nothing more than to dive into that water, it's so hot.

"This is the first day of summer. Longest day of the year." I hear the Doctor say, and see that he is walking toward me leisurely, his trainers protecting his feet.

"Plenty of time for fun in the sun, then. Was that the idea?" I say, and he nods, grinning proudly at his cleverness.

"Very thoughtful of you, Doctor." I say, braving the hot sand to go give him a kiss on the cheek. "It'll be nice not to be scrambling for our lives for once!"

"You know… I actually agree! Everyone needs a day off, once in a while." He says unbuttoning his suit jacket. I don't realize I'm silently watching his fingers working until his voice interrupts me.

"We'll need some beach supplies! Towels, a dinky plastic shovel, a plastic poppable ball, the classics! Maybe we can even bring out the anti-gravity gun!" He says, lowering his voice as if the last bit were terribly scandalous. He shrugs out of his jacket and rests it on his arm. I can't help giggling excitedly.

_I haven't been on vacation to a beach since I was nine years old! And I certainly didn't have the anti-gravity gun to play with, that's for sure…_

* * *

We set out brightly colored towels, with strange designs all over them, and stick a gigantic mushroom shaped umbrella in the sand next to it, for the shade we'll undoubtedly need at some point. I toss all of the beach toys, piled up in my arms, out onto the beach next to them. A beach ball, some shovels, a Frisbee, a little blue cube the Doctor told me to grab, and last but not least, the anti-gravity gun.

_Oh, I'm dying to try that…_

"Blimey, I'm burning up, I have got to get in that water." The Doctor says, tugging at his collar, and I can see his light blue dress-shirt starting to soak up some sweat. I'm not much better, in this long sundress of mine.

He untucks the shirt from his pants, and I look away, not really feeling bold enough to watch.

_Yet, when am I going to get another chance like this, eh? The platonic Time Lord and the awkward geek, not much of an opportunity for undressing…_

So I plop down in the sand, pretending to make a little sandcastle, and plant my eyes on the Doctor.

He unbuttons his shirt, ever so carefully. He's quite fond of all of his suits, that much I know. He wasn't pleased on Amazonia when I ruined his one suit, popping off the buttons in my hurry to get the key out.

He shrugs it off of his shoulders, ridiculously folding it, as if he planned on reusing it or something. His torso is lean, peppered with hair trailing down to the hem of his suit pants. All of the running we do has toned him, but not overtly so. He's just the right amount of musculature, not enough to be intimidating, but… Just enough.

My breath hitches and warmth spreads from my face down to the pit of my belly.

It's then that I can't keep my eyes glued to him anymore, when he turns his attention to his pants. I focus on the mound of shapeless sand I've collected in front of me. My hands absently try to make some sort of castle-esque form, pondering our situation.

_This is kind of like… weirdly romantic, compared to our other adventures. Just us two, pristine white beach, no one to interrupt us. No wonder I'm feeling awkward, I'm being forced to feel feelings!_

I think of everything we've been through together, all the Doctor has done for me, all I've done for him. Everything he has told me, confided in me with. His protective nature, which I assumed was just his natural state of being…

_Maybe… Maybe he does feel that way? My Doctor._

"Aren't you going to get in? Your face is getting quite red, don't want you overheating!"

I lift my eyes to see the Doctor in orange swimming trunks, standing in front of me, stretching his arms over his head. The image is comical, to say the least. I burst out laughing, and he looks down at his ensemble self-consciously.

"What?" He exclaims, laughing a bit with me, a smile spreading on his lips.

"I've never seen you in anything but those suits of yours, that's all. This is so… drastic!" I say between chuckles, biting my lip. His eyes stray to focus on that motion, but then he reaches a hand out to me, his smile turning tender.

"I don't think it's drastic at all, I think it's quite 'suit'able!" He says, and when I laugh, his smile gets wider, his eyes crinkling like they do when he has thought of something very clever.

"You really are such a ham," I say, my smile faltering when I remember the last time I'd said that. My almost-death. He seems to recall as well, and when I put my hand in his, he pulls me up into a quick hug.

"Oh come on, you love it." He says, pulling away to give me a wink.

"I do love you." I say, nodding, and then I nearly choke on my own tongue, "It. I do love it."

A single heartbeat passes before, for whatever reason, I decide now would be a good time to clumsily yank my dress over my head. As could be expected, it goes horribly wrong.

_I am the definition of unattractive. Look in a dictionary next to the word 'unsexy' and there'll be a picture of me as I am right this moment, stuck in my own clothing like a trapped rat._

My arm somehow gets stuck in its little arm-hole, and my hair gets tangled up in the halter-tied top. I struggle for a few more moments, before letting out a resigned groan.

"Little help?" I say, and the Doctor grins, trying and failing to not laugh at my misery.

He gently extricates me from my dress, and doesn't bother to fold it carefully like he did his. He just tosses the dress behind him in the sand, and stands in front of me, not even pretending his eyes aren't roving down my body.

This is the only time I have ever really felt like the Doctor was a man. A human man.

His gaze turns heated and rests just above my collar bone, where I know he must be able to see my pulse hammering away in my neck. Then he meets my eyes, and he's back to the old platonic Doctor, the one I'm much more familiar with.

"Well come on then, race you!" He says, and takes off towards the ocean.

"How many times do I have to say 'no fair'?!" I shout, and run after him, stumbling in the unsettled sand.

_I think I'll like this 'no danger' thing we've got going. I think I'll like it very much._


	37. Tell Her

Turns out, anti-gravity guns are quite useful for sandcastle building.

So far, in the several hours we've been here, we have managed to make two ten-foot tall sand castles, complete with furniture, doorways, ramparts, and one even has a moat with a drawbridge.

We ate coconuts and wild mangoes, straight off the trees. It really does make a difference, store-bought vs. wild grown. The taste was so much more robust and real.

We played anti-grav Frisbee, too, which was a blast. The Doctor even brought out these amazing masks that supply oxygen for ten minutes at a time. We used them to dive out to the reefs lining the beach, and I've never seen such a colorful collection of marine life. The diversity is simply remarkable. Really and truly remarkable. I never used to like fish very much, but now I think I might.

Presently, we're laying on our towels, under our mushroom umbrella. My skin is tanned, starting to become the slightest shade of red. My olive complexion has always tanned easily, and resisted burning pretty well, so I wasn't concerned, but the Doctor insisted that I put on sunscreen.

_Your skin protects you, so it's only polite that you return the favor!_ He had told me.

I take a deep breath and roll onto my side to look at him, brushing my exploding, beachy curls out of my face. He has on his glasses now, reading a book he'd brought out. It is titled 'Bioinstrumentation, Neobiochemistry, and You!"

It makes me smile, inside and out, because _that's_ the book he reads on his self-proclaimed day off.

"Sun's starting to go down," I say, over everything else that comes to mind.

He looks up from his book, snapping it shut, and takes off his glasses, blinking quickly a few times.

"So it is. I think it deserves a little rest, giving us a day like that, yeah?" He says softly, putting his hands behind his head and laying back down.

I hum in agreement, just quietly watching him, wanting to commit him to memory, as he is now. I get the feeling that this is a very rare thing for the Doctor. It's something he only treats himself to once every few hundred years, I think, being this peaceful and content with his life. Part of the punishment he doomed himself to.

If he got to live, he wouldn't live happily. And most of the time, he doesn't, not really.

But this is him, allowing himself to be happy.

He lets out a sigh and sits up to lean back on his hands, giving me a sidelong glance. His lips twitch up into a soft smile.

"I'm going to take another dip. Join me?" He says, heaving himself up and offering a hand to me. I take it automatically, without a second thought, and we walk through the cooling sand together. The setting sun is turning the sky a bright orange color, and I think it's strange that it reminds me of a planet I've never seen, never will see.

"I can't believe that our whole day just went by without a single hitch. We've had slow days before, but never like this!" I say as our feet splash in the shallows. He gives my hand a squeeze.

"Do you prefer it like this?" He asks, and I hear genuine curiosity in his voice.

_I might if he were always shirtless on slow days…_

"Well… It's very nice, don't get me wrong, and I do think we needed it… But I feel like we have places to be, people to meet. You know?"

"Oh yes, I think I can understand that. After a while, you start feeling like it's your responsibility. As if the universe might stop its natural rhythm if you're not on your toes. It's an illusion really. We're just two creatures in an infinite system of cogs and bolts, and it will continue to function long after we're both dust."

"I suppose that's true…" I say, not meaning it at all. The universe would be in serious trouble if the Doctor ever decided to quit his meddling, in my expert opinion. But why put that kind of pressure on him?

We're now waist deep in the warm water. The Doctor dives under, and I watch his blurry form kick his way to a spot several yards away from me. He stays under for much longer than I ever could.

_Again, note to self; two hearts are not only useful for chase scenes, but also for deep sea diving._

I duck under the waves, reveling in the muffled silence of the entire world around me. I kick my legs mermaid style, leisurely propelling myself towards the Doctor. I have to come up three times before I reach him, and when I do, I find that I can't touch the bottom. So, I float up so that I'm bobbing in the waves like a plank, not really having the energy left after our fun-filled day to tread water like he's doing.

I just close my eyes and feel the ocean moving me, up and down, back and forth. I remember when I used to be able to move it back, to feel every atom of it.

"Evy, be very careful, very still…" I hear the Doctor say and my eyes snap open, adrenaline shooting through my brain almost painfully.

"Why, what is it, what's wrong?" I squeak, and I hear a splashing sound, "Doctor?"

My mind concocts the worst scenarios possible.

_Maybe a Madroon has found its way to Earth, bringing the Kleo-Trinifare War back to haunt us. Maybe it's some kind of alien sea monster, and it's currently drowning the Doctor, right under my nose. Maybe it's just a normal sea creature, but that could also be kind of bad, couldn't it?_

_Most sea creatures communicate with sonar, if I could just get the sonic from the Doctor- no, but wait, it's in his suit pocket-_

Then I hear him sputtering water, and he laughs.

"It's just a dolphin, a Bottlenose Dolphin, isn't that wonderful? Go on, say hello, he's friendlier than me, and that's saying something!" He exclaims, and I let out a breath, causing me to sink a bit.

"Oh thank God, I thought I was about to eat my words, that you were being mutilated by some alien sea monster!" I say, but waste no more time, diving under the water, risking opening my eyes to have a look at the dolphin. Surprisingly it doesn't really sting.

I can see the blurry dolphin twisting its way through the water around us, letting out chirping whistles as it approaches me.

I hold out my hand, and it brushes its slick body up against it, playfully twisting away almost immediately. Bubbles rise out of my mouth in delighted laughter when I see more dolphins swimming towards us, a whole pod. The Doctor dives down next to me, and he gives me a thumbs up, flashing a blurred smile.

We swim with the pod for nearly a half hour, I should think. I am utterly exhausted by the time we start to slosh our way back to shore.

"Sometimes, I think dolphins might be smarter than some humans." I muse after a moment, and the Doctor chuckles.

"Sometimes, you'd be right."

I smile, stealing a glance at him. He has little drops of water cascading off of the wet tips of his hair. His skin is ever so slightly sunkissed now.

"Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

My intention had been to poke fun at him for having regenerated all those years ago into such a prettyboy, but instead...

"What I said earlier, the thing I said on accident... You know, that thing about you being a ham, and I blurted out- well, you know, that thing I said.." Words are tumbling out of my mouth, and I don't know why, and I can't stop them, and it is mortifying.

_Any second he's going to laugh at me. Any second._

But he doesn't laugh.

His gold eyes melt, and his face becomes very serious, looking at me with no smile upon his lips, no indication that he finds my attempt at conveying my feelings humorous.

Suddenly a sound, a very out of place sound, drifts over the rush of the waves.

A telephone ringing.

_Saved by the bell! Oh thank everything good and holy in this world._

The Doctor perks up, freezing for a moment.

"What?" He says, and then he is dragging me back to the T.A.R.D.I.S.

"Are you kidding? There's actually a phone in the police phone box?" I say, and he shrugs.

"Not in it, no. Not at the moment, right now it's just outside," he says, opening the panel with writing on it to reveal a phone, just an old phone. "Why does it keep doing this? It's not even supposed to work!"

It's ringing shrilly, and the Doctor grabs it, holding it up to his ear.

He listens for just a moment, then hands the phone to me.

"I think it's for you, actually."

"Seriously? What, how exactly…" I stutter, taking the phone and raising it to my ear hesitantly. What I hear startles me, sending my heart into my throat.

_That's my voice. That is my voice, I'm listening to my own voice._

"-know you can hear me, tell Evelyn Anne Crenshaw, species: human, inhabitant of level five Earth, indigenous to the year 2014, tell her she must never set foot on Solgard, not at any time, under any circumstance! Tell her it all depends on that, everything she is working for. It all depends on a single moment of her timeline. My timeline. Tell her-"

The other line hangs up.


	38. The Song of Solgard

"Okay, let's not freak out, let's be calm and think this through," I say rapidly, not even close to calm, "Calm, not panicking. Definitely not panicking, even though I sounded like I was in some pretty big trouble, we are not panicking! That was me. That was _me_?"

The Doctor is staring through me, the wheels in his mind visibly turning after telling him exactly what I heard.

"That was me, wasn't it?" I prompt and he puts a long finger on my lips, effectively silencing me.

He runs his hand through his damp hair, eyes wide, mouth open, and begins to pace in the sand like a caged lion. I just watch him, feeling as though this should not have happened.

Feeling very wrong, as if I've been pushed off balance.

_How did that happen anyway? What kind of technology did I have a hold on that allowed me to contact the past? The T.A.R.D.I.S? Was she a part of this, too?_

"Doctor, please." I say, my voice more whining than I intend, the fear getting to me through his silence, "What does this mean?"

He doesn't pause in his pacing, only lifting his eyes to mine for a fleeting moment.

"Yes, that appeared to have been you. But I'm not seeing what she's talking about. I'm concentrating as hard as I can upon your personal timeline, sorry for snooping, but I'm not seeing what she means! Solgard, I've never even heard of a planet, planetoid body, biosphere, anything called Solgard!"

He lets out a breath, shaking his head angrily.

"Maybe that means it doesn't happen, that we prevent- No! Stupid! It obviously happened, we just witnessed that. It happens, it has to happen now, and you!" He turns the full force of his frustration to me, his face all storm and rage, "You broke the biggest rule of all, Evelyn Crenshaw, you doubled back on your own timeline! You know better, you're a clever girl, usually, but no, not this time! What 'work' could possibly be worth risking a paradox for? Do you even understand what a paradox could do, not just to you, but the entire universe?"

I press my lips together to keep them from trembling, lifting my chin high.

_Only trying to save you from a horrible, lonely fate, you stupid, stupid man!_

"I… Obviously, I don't know yet. I'm as lost as you, alright? And shouting is really helping out, let me tell you, it's really what I needed in order to think straight! A good shout in the face!" I say, yanking the door to the T.A.R.D.I.S open and marching inside. Hiding my fear behind anger and lies is so much easier.

"You know more than you're letting on, Evy, I'm really pretty bright, believe it or not. You saw the snow in Colorado, and you reacted a just bit strangely. It frightened you, terrified you, even… And the song of the T.A.R.D.I.S, in your pretty little head, a 'stranger', just handing you space-age technology, a Psychic Reverberator! And now this?" He says, following me and when he catches up, he grabs my hand, pulling me to a standstill. I whip around to glare at him.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I grate out, my eyes pricking with bitter tears.

_There really is no going back now. I'm going to change the Doctor's future, whether I want to or not._

_Maybe I've gotten myself in deeper than I can manage. What if I'm not clever enough to figure this all out? What if I end up making his fate even worse, or I rip a hole in the space-time continuum or something horrible like that?_

_What if it happens anyway?_

_What if this is all for nothing, and I can't save him?_

_Oh, I've never been more terrified in my life. Not even when I was dying…_

"Evy." The Doctor breathes, shaking his head slowly and frowning. "Let me help you with this, whatever you're doing. Messing with time, it's definitely not-"

_Oh, just shut up. Shut up! Do you ever just shut up?_

I pull on his hand, and he stumbles towards me, face first. I plant my lips on his, effectively cutting him off, tangling my fingers up into his hair. I run my tongue lightly along his lower lip, tasting a few of my own tears. He grumbles appreciatively deep in his chest, his hand ghosting upon the curve of my waist, before I release him.

"I told you I don't know anything." I whisper, fearing my voice will crack if I dare to speak aloud, "Good night, you stupid man."

He blinks a few times, frozen in the spot I'd left him, before I turn away so quickly that my hair whips him in the face.

I hear him clear his throat.

"Always with the kissing…" I catch his bewildered muttering before I walk through the doorway into the bedroom wing.

_Obviously the T.A.R.D.I.S doesn't want him to know what I'm… what we're doing… _

_And so he won't. Not from me._

_I'm doing everything right from here on out, I swear._

As soon as I'm through his room and in my own, the T.A.R.D.I.S seals me in with the sound of a slamming door.

* * *

_A song, quick and flustered._

_Its notes flit about my mind like darting fireflies, illuminating snippets of thoughts._

_Thoughts that I somehow know are important, very important._

_I must grasp the meaning of these notes._

_The song becomes slower and joyful at this realization, and I know that I'm on the right track._

_I try to imagine what must be happening to cause the rise and fall of the notes, something that the T.A.R.D.I.S is trying to convey._

_Some string of events that follow the music, perhaps events of my future._

_Again, a joyful string of notes, and I know I'm correct._

_The song turns intense all of the sudden, the notes low and full of danger. It sweeps up into clashing harmonies of dissonant sound, making me feel frantic, distressed._

_ A steady beat of drums, sounding like a heartbeat, rises above the chords._

_"Evy, no!" I hear the Doctor's panicked voice, distant and faint, right at the crescendo. _

_And then silence._

_It sounds like death, that silence._

* * *

I open my eyes, not daring to move, barely brave enough to breathe. I stare at the pulsing green and white lights of the alien architecture above me, willing it to calm me.

It doesn't.

The orange sheets are tangled up in my legs and around my body, making me feel suffocated. I struggle free of them and sit up, running my fingers through my wild hair, deep in thought.

_It was a song. I mean, seriously, how much information could be accurately gleaned from a song?_

Yet, from the pit in my stomach, I know that song meant death. I could feel it in the very marrow of my bones.

_Death of who? Maybe death of what? It almost seemed to imply my death, but that doesn't make sense._

_Why would she show me that, if I'm interested in the Doctor's death? Do I die before I can change anything, is that what she's warning me about? Can I even change anything?_

My head starts to ache, almost as badly as those all too familiar migraines of mine. I groan, rubbing my temples, before sliding out of my bed and padding over to the mirror.

_I look like a cross between a Vinvocci and a-_

Hold on, Vinvocci…

I roll the word through my mind like a strange tasting hard candy.

_I've never heard that before. Not once in my life._

"Evy? Evy, I know you're awake in there, can I talk to you for a minute?" I hear the Doctor's muffled voice from behind the wall. The T.A.R.D.I.S isn't opening the door for him, and it makes me feel smug. Like the favorite child.

"I just wanted to apologize!"

I take a deep breath and look to the doorway, and there he stands, dressed for the day already in one of his precious suits.

"Hello." He says, with a hesitant smile, putting his hands in his pockets, and I find that the action makes me smile back, against my will.

"Hello." I say, grabbing my brush, and running it through my curls, needing something for my hands to do.

_Don't give anything away. Not a single thing. Don't think of it as lying, think of it as… omitting information!_

"Evy," he starts, rubbing the back of his neck, "I shouldn't have yelled yesterday, it's like you said, you didn't even know that your future self would do that. How could you have?... and I'm sorry that I upset you. I never thought I would make you cry."

I nod, smiling down at my bare feet, setting my brush down gently.

"I know, I was just a bit scared by that… blast from the future. Really scared, actually."

"Honestly, you weren't the only one."

We stand for a moment, our eyes locked and filled with the same emotion. Dread.

"Doctor, this could be extremely dangerous. And that's really, really saying something for us."

"Especially with us being so… uninformed. It's not strange that I've never heard of Solgard," he says, and the word sends chills down my spine now, "The universe is infinite, always changing and stretching and shrinking. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I mean honestly, it couldn't be one out of the hundreds upon thousands of planets I know of? You had to pick one I haven't got the slightest clue about?"

His voice is mocking now, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, you know me, I like to keep you on your toes, Time Lord… Speaking of that, I'm sorry I kind of… well, last night, I sort of attacked you, didn't I?" I say, my face burning when a slow smile spreads on his lips. "You just. Wouldn't. Shut. Up!"

"Oi! That's rude, that is! What if I interrupted you like that every time you tried to say something important?" He says, giving me a wink.

_Okay. _

_Actually I'm pretty much fine with that. _

_Please, by all means. _

_Be my guest._

"I'd like to see you try, I can have quite the mouth if I want to, you know." I say, pointing a finger at him, and his eyes fall down to my mouth, seeming to be in agreement.

_Poor choice of words, Evy._


	39. A Crash and a Scare

"Can't those little legs of yours move any faster?! These are Cheetaria we're talking about, at this rate, they're going to catch up to us in, oh if I had to calculate a quick guess, 9.483 seconds!" The Doctor shouts, yanking on my hand again. I lift my legs higher over the tall, dry grass, trying my best not to clobber him right then and there.

"You just had to blow up the Chief's hut," I pant in a sing-song voice, chancing a glance over my shoulder.

Cheetaria, are bursting out of the tree line, their gold spotted fur covered in grey ash. They lurch onto all fours once they spot us, and-

_WOW, the Doctor was not kidding, these guys are wicked fast!_

"Accidentally! Evy, focus! Legs pumping, feet running!"

The T.A.R.D.I.S is so very close, and all at the same time, not close enough. If it weren't for this painfully stiff, sharp, dry grass, maybe I wouldn't be having such a tough time running!

_When I said I'd always wanted to go to Africa, I meant 'real Africa'. _

_He takes it as 'a planet where every single humanoid has evolved to be an impossibly fast, easily provoked, carnivorous killing machine'._

"Just a little more!" The Doctor says, shooting a quick glance over his shoulder, and he must not like what he sees, because he starts shouting incoherently, surging forward and dragging me with him. I can hear the heavy panting of the Cheetaria behind us, growling ferociously.

We don't have time to open the doors. The Doctor lowers his shoulder, and the T.A.R.D.I.S doors burst open. We practically leap inside, landing in a heap, and I turn to see a snarling Cheetaria, lifting its clawed hand towards us. The Doctor and I each kick one door shut, slamming the entrance to the ship closed, and I hear several thuds on the doors.

We lay there panting for a few moments, and I realize I've fallen on one of the Doctor's arms. His other hand is still gripping mine. I sit up on an elbow to give him a disapproving look.

"What! How was I supposed to know that the prized statuette of the Chief of the Cheetaria was explosive? It looked like it was made of wood! The sonic doesn't work on wood!"

"Excuses, excuses, Mr. Doctor." I say, shaking my head in disappointment, but let out a snort of laughter, and he bursts out laughing as well.

"Oh we're terrible! They worshipped that thing. Literally!" I say between laughs.

"Well, who makes a holy statue explosive anyway? I call that a fatal flaw." He chuckles, standing up and helping me to do the same.

We start working the console, or at least, the Doctor starts working it and I push the few buttons I know how to push.

The fabrication panel, that's what he calls my area of expertise. Basically, every time I feel a big bump in the vortex, I have to push a series of several blue buttons, what he calls stabilizing the harmonic generator. Then when he tells me we're ready, I throw a lever, the materializing functionality lever. It allows us to land properly.

_Look at me, learning to fly the T.A.R.D.I.S, one panel at a time. It only took me almost two months to learn this one._

Two months. Two months since that one-sided phone conversation.

Two months of the T.A.R.D.I.S playing that same song in my head, every single night.

At first, the Doctor and I played it safe. We stayed in for a whole week, saying it was to allow the T.A.R.D.I.S to charge, but knowing it was out of caution. We entertained ourselves however we could, but it couldn't last forever.

The Doctor kept trying, very subtle and sneaky-like, to get information out of me. Bombarding me with questions while I was reading, confronting me immediately after showers when he knew I'd be flustered, being in a towel and all. He even resorted to drastic measures.

Interrogating me while we were in the pool.

There I was, swimming around, minding my own business, being a good girl and keeping my distance, when suddenly Time Lord hands pulled me under. At first, I thought he was just being his usual playful self, but then I stopped struggling, hitching my legs up around him for support, and he was just holding me underwater, gently and not forcibly by any means. And when we came up, his eyes, my God. I nearly melted into a puddle of water myself, disappeared to be one with the pool forever.

I had been so hyperaware of his hands, gripping my hips, skin on skin.

He's quite aware of the attraction between us, and the clever bastard sure did his best to use it against me. But even dazed and distracted, I refused to give up anything.

A few chaste touches aren't worth destroying the Doctor's future, and I'm not some floozy who would risk it.

But, we couldn't stay in forever, and with the Doctor resorting to such measures to try and get me to spill the beans, I had decided getting out was the best plan of action.

Only places he knew of, of course.

_No need to beg for trouble by trying our luck._

"Evy, harmonic generator." He says, and I blink quickly, realizing I had been neglecting my duties. I tap the sequence of buttons I know by heart now, and the T.A.R.D.I.S console lets out a whirring noise, as usual. But the room isn't righting itself, the harmonic generator isn't working.

"I did it, why's it not working?" I shout over the growing clatter of the T.A.R.D.I.S knocking about in the vortex. He jams a few buttons on one panel, tosses back a lever on the other, and runs over to my panel. He taps in a new sequence, but nothing seems to get better, only worse.

"She's locked in on a signal, some kind of distress signal, I can't stop her now." He grits out, and glances at me with trepidation in his wide gold eyes.

My stomach drops into my feet.

"Where is she taking us? Do you know where we're going?" I shout, giving up on the console, and latching myself onto the railing for support. He has also given up on doing anything to stop the wild spinning of the room, and suddenly we are upside down. The Doctor falls to the ceiling with a shout and I scramble to swing myself onto the railing, to no avail. My fingers slip on the slick metal and down I go, to the ceiling, landing on one of the strange coral-like support columns.

The room has crashed to a stop, and I assume that's exactly what has just happened. We have just crashed.

"Evy?" The Doctor says, coughing as gas spews from the console above us. "Evy, are you okay?"

I groan, lifting myself from the column's bumpy surface and peering at him through my hair.

"Yeah, I think so. You?"

"Fine, I'm fine," He growls, standing up his eyes scanning the console above us, "Different story for the T.A.R.D.I.S, I shouldn't have fought her so much. The gravity core is damaged, that much we know."

The sickly yellow colored gas is still hissing out of the console, and I cough heavily, the air starting to sting my lungs.

"Where are we?" I say between hacking, my thoughts replaying that oh-so-familiar song, "Please tell me you know where we are."

"The solar exhaust line has been severed, we need to get out of here. She won't begin repairs until we're out." The Doctor wheezes, heaving himself up onto one of the coral columns.

"No, I'm not leaving until you tell me where we are." I gasp, the gas now practically burning a hole in my chest cavity. I stand up on my column, though, instinct telling me to get the heck out of here. My eyes find our destination, the doors, so very far from me on the ceiling.

"Evy, we have no choice." He says, now all the way up his curved column, eyeing the railing above him.

"There has to be a room in this gigantic ship that isn't filled with solar… whatever-it-is gas! I'm not leaving!" I choke out, but my feet have already carried me up, and my hands have already clawed their way closer to the doors. "She said- I said I must not set foot on Solgard, that's what I said. It could- it could be…"

I trail off into a fit of coughing, feeling a little lightheaded as I continue my climb up the column.

"Whether it's Solgard or some other planet that lies outside these doors," he rasps, and jumps up to latch himself onto the railing, "You've already set foot on it, in case you hadn't noticed, and you'll die if you stay in here! There's no point, it happened, it will always happen!"

I know he's right. It's futile.

_And maybe it isn't Solgard, maybe it's a new planet! One he hasn't discovered yet!_

I cling to that hope as I leap for the railing, wrapping my body around it securely. I inch my way to the doors, where the Doctor is holding out a hand to me. I grab it and he pulls me off the railing and through the doors, onto a very squishy and wet ground. The T.A.R.D.I.S is upside down, smoking and steaming in the soggy ground, making a strange puffing sound.

The Doctor stops coughing and hacking long before I do, but when I can finally breathe, I hesitantly raise my eyes to the horizon.

* * *

**A/N**

**Sorry for the delay, I worked my butt of at... well, work, all week. It's been crazy, but I hope this makes up for it. How about two chapters at once? :0**

**Also, did you know that the elusive and reclusive species of human, the Fanfiction Writer, actually lives off of the energy obtained by a source called 'Reviews'? Intriguing, isn't it? **

**Yeah I'm lame. Thanks for liking my story anyway :D**

**Lots of love,**

**-A.**


	40. The Immortality Gate

It's a planet with a green sky, a luminous green sky with three suns visible. The ground we're sprawled on is squishy for a reason. It's a marsh. The heady scent of moist soil replaces the numbness in my nostrils, and I would find it pleasant, if I weren't so anxious.

"So, distress signal? Does the T.A.R.D.I.S always do that, just blindly lock onto whomever is calling for help? Isn't that a bit, I don't know, dangerous?" I say, and stand up, wishing I'd worn more waterproof shoes than my trainers when they squish into the bog. My back is soaked already, though, so it's a bit of a lost cause anyway.

"She's a police phone box, she can't resist a call for help," The Doctor says, shrugging.

"She's _disguised_ as a police phone box. I think she just takes after her resident Time Lord a bit too much," I correct, and again, he shrugs, his eyes scanning the landscape.

It's just green, everywhere you look, green. Plants are weaving in and out of the shallow water of the bog, tall trees line the end of the horizon, very far away from us. It looks like even the trunks of those trees are green though.

"It'll be about twenty four hours before the T.A.R.D.I.S is repaired enough to even enter." He says, and I feel a little nauseous, because I know.

_I know this is Solgard._

_But I still don't know what I have to do, or what's going to happen._

"Oh, we are so screwed." I groan, and the Doctor drapes an arm over me, drawing me in for comfort. I gladly fold myself into him, the anxiety ebbing a little.

"Will you tell me what's going on _now_?" He says, his voice vibrating his chest beneath my cheek.

_Okay, anxiety's back._

I just stay silent, because it's no use pretending I've got no secrets. He really is too bright.

It's then that I hear a humming in the distance. A very deep humming, like that of a helicopter or something.

I pull away from the Doctor, and train my eyes above the trees in the distance, feeling the Doctor go rigid beside me.

"Something's coming." I mutter, and the Doctor calmly reaches into his suit to grip the sonic in his hand. I take the other.

It's a… blimp?

A big, metal ship attached to a very shiny metallic balloon is coming towards us, at an impossibly fast pace.

_Aren't blimps supposed to be slow?_

"Should we run?" I say, and the Doctor shakes his head, giving my hand a little squeeze.

"Could just be a few curious members of the indigenous species. We don't want to be rude!"

"Okay, but I told me not to come here, don't you think I might have had a good reason if my future self specifically phoned myself in the _past?"_ I say, tugging on his hand, but I know he won't come with me.

_You're really not going to make saving your life easy, are you?_

The blimp is nearly hovering over us now, and a beam of light jets out of the bottom. My entire body tingles, feels very cold, and then we are not in the marsh any more.

We are in a messy looking room, piles of scrap metal piled up along the smooth iron walls. Large, square windows above a console display the green sky nicely, and I almost don't see what's standing in front of them because of it.

Green people.

These aliens are actually green.

And I mean green, like cactus green, like neon green, like really green.

Their heads have spikes on them, reinforcing the cactus imagery, but besides that, they're pretty normal looking. Two eyes, one mouth, two hands, two legs, everything where it should be.

They're Vinvocci.

Vinvocci, the name the T.A.R.D.I.S put into my head, the unfamiliar word I'd been confused about knowing.

_They don't look all that threatening._

"Thanks for the port up, it was a bit muggy down there." The Doctor says, brushing off his suit coat, as if that will get rid of the muddy water staining it.

"Are you insane, walking around in the open like that? No mask, no bio-suits, no nothing! Have you got a death wish?" One of them demands, a female judging by the delicate facial features and voice.

"Didn't quite have time to do a proximity scan, a bit busy crashing, because of your distress signal." The Doctor says, raising an eyebrow.

"You're joking. Gary, tell me they're joking. Tell me we didn't port up a couple of diseased tourists." The female says to her counterpart, Gary, apparently.

"Hi there. Evy, and this is the Doctor, would you mind explaining what you're talking about? Because I'm a little on edge here, and an explanation would be really great. Death wish?" I say, my voice small and quick.

"Yes, are you deaf? Death. Wish." Gary says, and I find I dislike the sassy Vinvocci so far, "The sickness, it's not just the water anymore, it's airborne. It's some kind of microbe, we know that. It's only been eight days since first occurrence, but we're doing our best here, trying to save whoever is left."

"Eight days? How many dead?" The Doctor asks, putting the sonic away at last.

"Communications are spotty, but last we hear, the estimation was about two billion. Anyone who didn't get up in the air before the airborne stage… They all died." The female Vinvocci looks to her feet, her green fists clenching at her sides.

"Well, don't you have an antidote or something? Anything that can help us?"

"Really, an antidote? If only it were that simple. What are you people anyways? You're so… pink." Gary says, gesturing to us as if we offend him.

"I'm a Time Lord, and Evy's a human, from Earth." The Doctor says quickly, "So, you must have samples, something to study?"

"Well, yes, but you do realize you're going to die, Time Lord or not? And human, never heard of it. Definitely going to die." Gary says, and my eyes get wide with panic, and I look to the Doctor. I notice the rise and fall of his chest becoming quicker, shallower.

I don't feel any different though, not yet.

"Well then, we've got about eight minutes, according to you, how about you show me what you've done in these eight days, and then we'll see about the dying." The Doctor says, ever upbeat.

The Vinvocci exchange glances, and Gary nods.

"Terri, you show him the Gate, I'll send a message to Larry, tell him to set samples out in the lab." Gary says, turning to the windows, where a square control panel sits. Terri, the female with the delicate features, gestures for us to follow, and quickly.

She leads us through a few automatic metal doors, and into a workshop of sorts. Smack dab in the center is an arch of machinery, blinking and emitting a barely audible thrum. It's so deep, I can feel the sound waves from it bouncing around in my chest.

The Doctor clears his throat, and when I look at him, his eyes seem a little… droopy. And bloodshot.

"Doctor?" I say, and when I gently place my hand on his shoulder, he just sways a little, then walks forward to the gate.

"Donna, look at this thing. I know you're not really one for art, but… This is a beautiful sculpture." He says to Terri, his words slurring. "Have you ever seen anything so damn beautiful?"

"Doctor, sit down, you're looking a little pale." I say, panic gripping my heart when he stumbles a bit, supporting himself by leaning on the machine. I rush to his side, gripping his arm, and when I do he looks at me with unfocused eyes. He smiles a little.

"Evy… my brave Evelyn." He says, and reaches out to cup my cheek with his trembling hand.

Then he falls to his knees, curled inward as if in horrid pain.

That's when I know that this is what it's all been building to. The song, the T.A.R.D.I.S messing with my head, all of the hints and the phone call from the past.

_Maybe the fate I saw in my dream, so long ago, maybe that was the good fate. He regenerates, he lives on. I met his future self, I know he lives._

_Maybe this is what I need to prevent._

"Doctor, I don't know what to do, I've been trying to figure it out but I can't think of anything. I don't know what I have to do." I say, furious tears pricking at my eyes, "I'll go back to the T.A.R.D.I.S, I can-"

"Evy, no!" He says, his eyes suddenly clear, and the song in my head skids to a halt at the familiar words, "Listen very carefully, I can confine the infection to my chest cavity for now by diverting antibodies, but it's gone past my lungs, spreading to my hearts. It will kill me, but I can prevent it from-"

He curls inward again, his mouth opening in a silent scream. Tears cascade from my eyes at the sight, and I bite my lip so hard I draw blood.

"-from reaching its end stage, I can delay it. I can give you about thirty minutes before the antibodies in my blood will be entirely depleted."

"Doctor, I'm just… I'm not a genius, I need you! Please." I say, and he opens his mouth to say something, holding his breath, but then his eyes roll back into his head, and he collapses. I roll him over, tapping his face a few times, but he doesn't respond. He looks as if he is very deep in concentration, as if disturbing him would be impossible at this point.

"Told you." Terri says, and my eyes dart to her green face. I try to control my hysterical crying, and get up to walk to the gate.

_Okay, I need to focus, and now._

"Hey, cactus head, he isn't dead, for your information. What is this, what does it do?" I demand, wiping my tears away. She just stares at me for a bit.

"That… is racist! Humans, apparently, are very rude!" She exclaims, a hand over her heart, "And why aren't you dying?"

"Tell me what this does, you heard the Doctor, I have thirty minutes to figure out how to cure this disease, you've had eight days and you haven't done much. So, spit it out!" I shout, and Terri scowls.

"It's a Hipocci Healing Gate, it does exactly what you think it does, except it needs a biological template in order to work." Terri says, walking over to one side of the arched machine, inputting some kind of code, "We'd need some kind of antidote, an organism exposed to the microbial infection and healed, something for the Gate to code before it can work."

The machine gives off a low beeping, every light on it flashing red.

"See? No template, no healing."

"So this machine, it kind of… copies and pastes wellness onto people?" I say, and the Vinvocci shrugs.

"Sort of, I guess. Bit more complicated, but I'll let it slide. If we can get it operational, all of Solgard will be made immune and virtually safe for re-inhabitation, instantly."

_Solgard. The literal bane of my existence, the place of reckoning, the tolling of the final hour on the clock._

"Well don't you have any Vinvocci who have survived this?"

She throws her arms up in exasperation.

"What part of 'deadly microbial infection' do you not understand? No one survives, not ever." She says, her face falling into grief. "We're working on a counteragent for the toxin of the microbe, but nothing we're doing is working."

"Take me to this lab of yours. I'm a biologist." I say, and she gives me a skeptical look, "Sort of. For Earth. Just take me!"

I give the Doctor one last glance, hoping he'll get up and burst to life like he always does, running around, being incredible and completely dorky and brilliant and hilarious and passionate, all at the same time.

But he doesn't. He's still as stone, barely breathing through the intensity of his concentration.

Terri leads me out into the hallway, pausing at the top of some creaky metal stairs.

"I hope cadavers don't bother you."


	41. Full Circle

Terri grabs two large white suits off of the wall at the bottom of the stairs, like astronaut suits, and hands one to me.

"Just to be safe." She says, taking a deep breath before sliding into the suit, and I follow her lead. She lets us into the lab, a dimly lit room full of surprisingly familiar medical and scientific equipment.

Black body bags litter the lab tables. Hydro-stasis tubes, just a few of them in the back of the room, contain Vinvocci, floating peacefully with oxygen masks on.

_Pretty sure I saw this in a Syfy original movie…_

"We've managed to freeze a few of our people in the first stage of infection. The idea is that if we can develop a vaccination, or an antidote as you put it, we can use their healed body as a template, and get the Gate to work."

"No success on the vaccinations?"

"So far they do more bad than good…" She says, her voice soft and miserable.

I turn my attention to the cadavers.

"What do the autopsies reveal?" I ask through the suit's audio speakers, and she walks over to the nearest body bag, unzipping it to reveal a Vinvocci.

Or what's left of him. I'm glad I can't smell through this helmet.

They've made incisions everywhere, abdomen, throat, skull, wrists, and thoracic cavity. Everywhere.

"Extreme degradation of living tissue, presumed to be the effect of the toxin released by the microbes. Once entered into the lungs, the microbes enter the bloodstream, attaching to hypertelomerized hemoglobin, and-"

"Hypertelomer-what-now?"

Terri rolls her eyes.

"Hypertelomerized hemoglobin. Allows for extra oxygen and nutrient transport, never wears out, can replicate itself indefinitely if lost, causes what most species consider to be long life cycles. Thought you were a biologist, human."

"Humans don't have hypertelomerized hemoglobin, so excuse me for being a little ignorant on alien biological processes…" I grumble, picking up a metal probe and examining the cardiac tissue.

It looks like something has burned its way through each and every cell in the Vinvocci's thoracic cavity, leaving the tissue a charred brown, shriveled and unnatural.

_Just the thought of this happening to the Doctor, as we speak…_

I sift through all of the knowledge I have on microbiology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, all of those classes I took years ago.

Nothing is coming up, no magical realization, no mind-boggling insight into how to solve this.

"I'm useless. I didn't even know what hypertelomerized hemoglobin was!" I exclaim, slamming the metal probe back on the lab table, and heading for the exit.

"Where are you going?"

"To talk to Gary, maybe he'll inspire me, I don't know!" I reply, and I take off the suit once I'm outside the lab and the door has closed. I march up the steps, and through the halls, forcing myself to walk past where I know the Doctor is.

"Gary, tell me more about this microbe. How did it start, where did it come from?" I say as I walk into the room, but I don't find Gary. The seat in front of the huge windows is empty. I let out a breath, closing my eyes and slumping into it.

"What am I going to do?" I whisper, resting my head in my hands.

I can't stop the tears from coming then. I know it's hopeless, that I have failed not only the Doctor, but this entire planet.

_I managed to change the future, alright._

_In fact, I managed to change it so drastically that the memory of the Doctor regenerating, dying in a snowy alley-way, doesn't seem so terrible anymore._

_At least he lived on in some way in that timeline. At least he isn't slowly being eaten alive by an alien microbial infection. No regeneration from that, not from the look of that cardiac tissue._

_All along, this was what I was doing. Stumbling through time, misinterpreting everything. _

_I wasn't helping the Doctor, I've just sealed his fate with the kiss of death, that's all I've done._

I lift my head up to stare at the ceiling, sniffling and willing it to give me the answer to all this.

_He's not going to regenerate into that bubbly buffoon I met in Colorado. He's not going to do anything in about fifteen minutes._

I jump in surprise when the communications device on the console lets out a ringing sound.

Like a phone.

I reach for it hesitantly, afraid of what I might hear on the other end.

_Last time didn't end up so well, now did it?_

I pick it up and bring it to my ear, not daring to speak.

It's the song. It's the song of Solgard, from the T.A.R.D.I.S, playing through the com device. It must be her, still working to help me, even half-destroyed.

"Hello?" I say, my voice tiny, "Hello? Is this the phone call? The phone call that delves into my past? This is it, really?"

I take a breath.

_Maybe if I try hard enough, I can change something. The Doctor from the future did tell me time could be rewritten!_

"Okay well, see, you're going to think that you should avoid this place, but really you _need_ to avoid it. The Doctor is dying, really dying, do you understand? He won't regenerate, not from this. I screwed up... I guess that's a bit of an understatement."

I pause when I hear the line click on the other end, at the end of the song, the deathly silence…

"Hello? Evy, Evelyn Crenshaw, she has to know. Tell Evy, that it's very important that she avoids this planet, tell her she can never come here."

Silence on the other end.

"I know you can hear me, tell Evelyn Anne Crenshaw, species: human, inhabitant of level five Earth, indigenous to the year 2014, tell her she must never set foot on Solgard, not at any time, under any circumstance! Tell her it all depends on that, everything she is working for. It all depends on a single moment of her timeline. My timeline. Tell her-"

A shout reaches my ears from the hallway, and I drop the com device. The cheap material shatters on the floor, and the worst case scenario blasts its way through my mind.

_I'm too late, I've dwindled all of the time the Doctor gave to me._

_But no, it's too soon! Please, no._

I leap up from the chair and sprint down the hall to the room with the Gate in it.

It's Gary, not the Doctor, who's shouting. He's collapsed on the ground next to the Gate, as if he had been fiddling with the controls. Terri bursts into the room, her green face crumpling when she sees Gary.

"You're infected, how are you infected? This isn't happening, please don't leave me." She says desperately, falling to his side and propping his head up on her lap. He just shouts in pain some more, shaking his head back and forth violently.

"You did this!" She says, her glaring black eyes on me, "You and that Doctor, you brought it onto the ship. We should have left you out there to die, both of you, but no, I guess it would just be him dying. You haven't got hypertelomerized hemoglobin, so aren't you lucky. You'll get to watch the rest of us die instead!"

I haven't got hypertelomerized hemoglobin.

_I haven't got hypertelomerized hemoglobin._

"I haven't got hypertelomerized hemoglobin!" I shout at the top of my lungs, squeezing my aching head between my hands in furious excitement, "I've been exposed to the microbe, but it hasn't been able to affect me because my biological make-up is not the same as a Vinvocci or a Time Lord. But my body has managed to avoid any adverse effects from the microbe itself, and its toxins, meaning that I must be able to fight it off. Can you use me as a template?" I shout, and Terri shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes as Gary shouts again.

"Using another species as a template has never been done before, we don't know the effects on the population, or you." She says, and I run over to the machine, gesturing wildly.

"Isn't it worth a try, though? C'mon, we can save Gary if we're quick. Punch in the activation code, and what do I do, just stand here, or what?" I shout, knowing that Gary isn't the only one on a time crunch.

Terri is silent for a moment, her eyes darting around, thinking as quickly as she can. Then she lets out a growl and stands up, rushing to the arch. She begins to punch in the code.

"Stand right in the middle of the arch, be very still, hold your breath." She says tersely, then gives me a stern look, "You might not come out of this in good shape. You might not come out of this, period. This has never been done before, so the side-effects could be... drastic."

I wave her off, ignoring the clench of fear in my stomach. The Doctor still hasn't moved an inch, his face now contorted as if his concentration won't be enough for much longer.

"Do it."

* * *

**A/N**

**Reviews, ONE HUNDRED of them! Thank you all so much, I want to name each and every one of you, but you wonderful people know who you are, and I hope you all know by now, since I say it every single A/N, that I love you all! :D**

**Just one simple review keeps me writing and inspires me, and best of all, makes me smile my brightest! :D **

**So thank you all, for your time and support and virtual hugs.**

**Lots of love,**

**-A.**


	42. Prognosis

Terri presses the correct buttons, and the arch lets out a groan around me. I resist the urge to swivel my head, to try to get a hint as to what it will do to me. I remain standing still and holding my breath, staring straight ahead, just as Terri instructed.

_Don't panic._

_I mean hey, who knows what this alien technology is about to do to you and every single person on this planet, but that's no reason to lose your head._

_Unless I really do lose my head. _

I bite my lip, swallowing nervously.

"And… you're global!" Terri says, pressing one last button, and an odd blue light bursts up around me. It looks so strange, as if I should be able to run my hands through it. Thick, like gel. I can feel it permeating my body, like a slight vibration seeping into every pore of my skin, and then into every cell.

It's not unpleasant, just very strange.

The light then expands, shooting through the room so quickly, I barely catch it, and then, it's done.

I finally allow myself to breathe, and relax. Gary has stopped screaming, but he is now laying still on the floor, just as still as the Doctor. Terri rushes to him, checking vitals quickly.

"Did it work?" I say, kneeling next to the Doctor. I smooth the furrow between his brow with my thumb, and he relaxes under my touch, his face becoming peaceful. I take that as a good sign.

I open one of his eyelids, and the gold orb is still bloodshot, but his breathing is normal and his pulse is strong, knocking four times against my fingers as it should.

"He seems to be stable, but I'm not sure about the internal damage." She says, pressing her head to Gary's abdomen, listening for something.

I scratch an itch on my hand, and sigh deeply, feeling the tension start to evaporate from me, like letting off steam.

_Crisis averted? Have I successfully done whatever needed to be done on Solgard?_

_Why would the T.A.R.D.I.S lead us here, anyway? If she knew our timelines, then she was aware of the danger._

_This can't be it. What's the catch?_

"Do you have any diagnostic tools in the lab? We should make sure everything's in order." I say, and Terri nods, leaving to run down to the lab. She comes back with her arms full of machinery and syringes and sterile gloves and sample tubes.

I help her sort it all out, and then we set to work.

Or really Terri sets to work, and I do my part, being her silent cheerleader.

_Yeah, I'd rather stay away from the complicated medical technology. I've tried my luck with that quite enough today, thanks._

She uses the biggest of the machinery she brought up, a square see-through glass in a metal frame, with a handle covered in buttons.

_ It's like a magnifying glass on crack._

She gets it to work, and then hovers it over Gary's body.

It's an x-ray of sorts, though I can vaguely make out the flow of blood through his body, so I know that's not exactly what it is. She scans his whole body with it, looking perplexed.

"There seems to be no damage to the internal organs at all. Like it has been reversed. That's a good sign, the Gate has functioned properly in that regard," She mutters, pausing on his thoracic cavity.

"But this isn't supposed to be here." She says, pointing to a tiny organ on the right side of his ribcage. It spasms quickly and regularly, like how a very small animal breathes.

"What is it?" I ask, and she sits back, turning the contraption off.

"I think that's the manifestation of the calibration of the Gate. You aren't Vinvocci or Time Lord, but that's who needed to be healed. It's trying to make up for the gap in the species, it's changing everyone to fit the bill, so to speak." She says, giving me a look as if I might grow two heads at any second. I scratch at my hand again, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Does that mean you've changed too? Have I changed?" I ask, and she raises the glass to me, gazing through my skin into my ribcage. Her eyes widen.

"Yes, there it is, that second heart. Here, give me a try." She says.

_A second heart? Like the Doctor?_

She hands me the glass, and I hold it up to her.

It's the same little organ, pumping away. Growing a little before my eyes. A second heart, tiny and miniscule, barely even noticeable, but becoming more evident with each passing second.

"Shouldn't we feel this happening?" I ask, turning the glass off, and staring at her, absolutely perplexed.

_You'd think growing a whole new organ might sting a little, at least._

"Don't ask me! The Gate has many functions and Vinvocci didn't create it, the Hipocci did. We only have it because we imported it years ago. This isn't even the most recent type of Hipocci Healing Gate, it's an outdated model." She says gesturing to the Gate, eyeing it warily, as if it might come to life.

"So… Every Vinvocci on Solgard, all of them who were alive, they've all got this tiny second heart then? What else is it doing to us?" I ask, scratching my hand again, and when I look down at it, I let out a surprised yelp.

A green patch is growing on my hand, spreading up my arm. The color swirls strangely, like food coloring in water, moving and changing as if it's an entity in itself.

"Oh my God! Am I going to look like you? I don't want to look like a walking cactus, make it stop!" I shout, lurching to my feet, watching as the green appears on my other hand, itching like crazy.

"Seriously, walking cactus?" Terri says, but her expression isn't offended. She looks rather intrigued actually. She slaps some of the gloves on and grabs a syringe.

"Hold still." She says, and jabs the needle into my arm, drawing blood up into the syringe. I don't protest, because blood work is exactly what needs to be done.

_Maybe it will answer the million dollar question…_

_What the holy hiphopping hell is happening to me?_

The green swirls of color stop whirling their way up my body then, and sink into my skin like lotion. Just like that they're gone.

"What?" I whisper, running a finger along my arm. It's just my skin now, just my normal skin. Not green or leathery or anything. Just me.

"The Gate's still calibrating with you, I think. It had to mold you to fit two different species, remember? You'll have twice the side-effects that any of us have, including your Time Lord." Terri says, tapping the blood in the syringe and taking it over to another machine of hers. She takes the needle off of the tip and inserts the syringe into a holder, and the blood gets sucked into the machine.

"So what does this make me, A Vin-Human-Lord?" I say, picking up the x-ray glass and heading over to the Doctor. His two hearts are the same size, unlike mine, thudding strongly in staccato syncopation.

_Unconscious but alive. Not so bad a deal. After all, I am always thinking about how having two hearts would be useful… The green skin, on the other hand…_

"Don't know, but you've got hypertelomerized hemoglobin now, galvanized against the microbial infection it seems. Could be from either the Time Lord or from the Vinvocci, both have it." She says, bringing the machine close to her face and reading off of a tiny screen. "Something else in your blood that it's not recognizing. Probably Time Lord in origin."

She watches more sentences pop up on the screen, and her eyebrows rise at one particular string of words.

"And a few Vinvocci chloroplastic erythrocytes. Your DNA must be so very confused."

She replaces her gloves and uses a new syringe on Gary, much more gently than she had on me, might I add, and inserts it into the machine again.

"The same thing, a Time Lord protein in the blood, galvanized hypertelomerized hemoglobin…" She mutters, and gives me a bewildered look, "This is utterly insane."

"But they're okay? Hybridized, galvanized, whatever, but okay, right?" I ask, and she nods slowly.

"They seem stable still. I'm not sure why they're not waking up, though. The Gate might still be working on them." She says, then tilts her head, seeming muddled, "And us, too, apparently?"

I understand the source of her strange expression, because I can feel it now. That second heart, changing the pulse, the rhythm of my entire body. It makes me cough, feeling uncomfortable and panicked, completely thrown off. It feels like my heart is racing, like it's about to burst. I press two fingers to my neck, feeling two strong bumps and two more weak thumps.

Still, four in a row, just like the Doctor's.

"Oh, that's going to take some getting used to, that is…" Terri mutters, and we stare at each other blankly.

"What do we do now?" I ask, not knowing what to do with myself. I feel another itch on my arm, and when I look down, a burst of green pops up on my skin, and sinks back down just as quickly.

"We wait. What else can we do?"


	43. Adjustments

Terri does more tests on all of us, monitoring the growth of our brand new cardiac systems.

All of our hearts stopped growing at a little less than half the size of our true hearts. I keep checking my pulse, just to convince myself that it really happened.

She tells me that nothing else seems to be changed in her or Gary besides a few blood proteins, the hemoglobin, and of course, their tiny hearts.

As for me, she doesn't know what a human is supposed to have, or not supposed to have. She does her best, though. I seem to only have changed in the same ways as the Vinvocci, Time Lord-wise. She finds more of what she calls "chloroplastic erythrocytes", which she explains to be one of the things needed for a Vinvocci to perform photosynthesis.

When I asked her if I just needed to stand in the suns in order to eat, she called me a moron, so I'm guessing that means I'm not photosynthetic.

The Doctor, though... Terri says that his body seems to be reversing the changes done to it by the Gate. It's almost like his immune system is eliminating all of the Vinvocci proteins, like he's doing it consciously. His skin is also not sporadically turning green, which I assume is also his doing.

I wouldn't be surprised.

_How am I going to explain this to the Doctor?_

_'Oh yeah, while you were dying, I hopped into some machine that caused an entire planet to become mutants, and also, I am one of those mutants.'_

_Knowing him, he won't be pleased. He always finds perfection in organisms, just the way they are._

Terri and I sit in that room for what must be several more hours. I entertain myself by trying to guess when the green swirls will appear on my skin. They're getting further apart now, less and less frequent as the hours pass.

When I ask her for food, she sneers at me.

"We're photosynthetic organisms, remember, we don't actually eat. You humans must be barbarians," She says, and I shrug.

"I wouldn't know. You'd have to ask an actual human." I say, trying to get her to crack a smile.

She doesn't. She just frowns, and focuses her attention on watching Gary breathe.

"Is he your… boyfriend? Gary, I mean." I say, and she looks horrified, her cheeks turning a darker shade of green.

"He's my brother!"

"Gary and Terri… Should have known." I say, giving her a sheepish look. I decide that small talk is not a good idea at this point. She obviously has made up her mind to low-level loathe me.

I settle my attention on the Doctor, for the seven millionth time today. He hasn't done anything interesting. He just lays there, unmoving.

_What if he stays like this forever? What will I do then?_

I bite the inside of my lip, wondering if Time Lords go into comas.

_Well, I know one thing for sure._

_Once the T.A.R.D.I.S is fixed, we are out of here._

"What about the Time Lord? Are you his… honorary Time Lady?" She asks after minutes of silence. I look up from the Doctor's slumbering face to see her gazing at me curiously.

"Oh… I wouldn't say that. We're just- You see, it's a little complicated. Humans live for less than a century, and Time Lords… Well, they have all the time in the world to live. Seventy years is nothing to him, but it might be all I have left." I shrug as if it doesn't matter to me, "I guess that's a pretty good reason for hesitation, you know? He's already lost so much."

A slow smirk spreads across her green lips. I raise an eyebrow at her.

"What?"

"That fancy new hemoglobin of yours, do you remember what I said it does?" She asks, and I try to think back to her explanation.

"It uh… transports a lot of oxygen at once, can replace itself if depleted or destroyed? Right?"

"Which causes…" She prompts.

"The ability to get first in a bunch of marathons?" I say, my voice lilting up in confusion.

"Which causes a long life span!" She says, rolling her eyes, "Not only are humans apparently incredibly rude, they're also surprisingly slow."

"So…" I say, drawing out the word for much longer than necessary, "How much longer are we talking here?"

"Well, I'm 86 years old, and Gary is 94… My grandfather died at 213, if that puts it into perspective for you. The hypertelomerized hemoglobin is a huge part of why we live as long as we do." She says, her eyes glimmering with the joy of delivering good news to someone. I just stare at her, slack jawed.

_213 years! Two hundred… and thirteen… years…_

_That's more than two whole centuries, two whole centuries of life ahead of me if she's right._

_That's terrifying. Absolutely terrifying, to think of me living to be two hundred. The things that might come to pass, the change that will no doubt happen to me in that time._

_Yet, isn't that good? Two hundred more years of hearts-pounding adventure, of demanding to live rather than just exist? It doesn't sound so bad, as long as I had someone to share it with…_

"Are you alright?" Terri asks, and I just nod slowly.

"Yeah, it's just… Imagine you had 400 years to live. From the perspective of your species, that's basically what I've just been given." I say, bringing my knees up to my chest, suddenly feeling very uncertain about all of this.

_I_ _don't really want to be a Vin-Human-Lord. I was perfectly happy as a normal human._

_Is this what the T.A.R.D.I.S brought us here for? Did she know this would happen to me?_

"You'll get used to it, I think. In fact, I bet you'll be ready for that extra time, once he's awake." She says, giving me a cheeky grin.

_Yeah, but why can't he just wake up already and tell me everything's going to be fine, and that I'm brilliant and amazing, and that I didn't completely screw everything up?_

_Why can't that be happening right now?_

_I'd really like that. _

_Actually, I think I kind of need that. _

_Now._

And with that thought, my hearts start pounding out a nonstop, four-step tornado, and I spiral into my very first trans-species related panic attack.

* * *

I wake up from my tranquilizer nap to find myself slumped on the floor, a few feet from the Doctor. Right where I'd begun screeching about how I couldn't breathe through the sound of my hearts in my ears.

Terri had been having none of that.

My neck is stiff from the awkward way I'd fallen to the ground.

_Thanks Terri, thanks so much for making sure I was comfortable whilst I enjoyed the drug-induced slumber you so kindly gifted to me._

I watch the Doctor for a bit. He still isn't stirring, not in the slightest, so I roll myself onto my back, allowing my body to unkink itself before standing up.

"Terri?" I call, noticing that Gary is gone as well.

"In here." I hear her shout, and I leave the Gate room to see that she has set up a sort of bed for Gary in the control room of the blimp.

_I see how it is. The pink people don't deserve comfort. _

She's sitting at the control console, and when I walk in, she swivels the chair around to look at me.

"Feeling better?" Terri says, smirking as I rub knots out of my neck.

"Better is such a strong word..." I mutter, "How long was I out?"

"About ten hours… Gary still hasn't woken up." She says, worry filling her dark eyes.

"Neither has the Doctor."

We stay silent for a bit, pondering the reason behind it, sharing the anxiety of not knowing.

"I need to get communications back online, at any rate, get a hold of survivors." She says, and turns to the control console. "You're welcome to hang around, but I've got more of that sedative if you flip out again. So do us both a favor and stay calm."

I wonder if the T.A.R.D.I.S has finished repairs yet.

It has to have been around twenty four hours, maybe a few less. I glance out the window into the green sky, and the suns are more or less in the same position they were when we first saw them.

_I just want to be somewhere familiar. _

"You know, actually, I think I'm going to grab the Doctor and head back to our ship. Thanks though." I say sarcastically, and she shrugs, not bothering to look up from the console, "Mind porting us down?"

Her fingers stop fiddling with the console, and she takes a deep breath.

"Yeah, no problem. And… Evy, was it?" She says, and I nod, "Thank you… I know we're not exactly best friends, I mean, you're a racist…"

I scoff, putting my hands on my hips, opening my mouth to begin to defend myself.

"But, there's no denying that you saved my brother. You saved my brother, and you saved every Vinvocci left on Solgard. Racist, or not, you might have died doing what you did, and I will always be grateful."

I swallow whatever words were scrambling to leave my lips, and give her a slight smile.

"Don't mention it," I say, feeling stupid for it, but it's all I could think of to reply to her accolades.

She nods, then types in a sequence, and pushes a slidey button. That same cool, tingling sensation shivers through my body, and next thing I know, I am in the oh-so-green marshlands again.

A familiar blue box, still toppled over on her head, is sitting in front of me, and in a jet of light, the Doctor appears next to me, laying on the mushy ground.

_Still snoozing away._

_Snoozing, yeah. That's all he's doing._

The T.A.R.D.I.S isn't making that wheezing sound, or smoking, which encourages me to try the door. When I peek inside, it's very disorienting. The room is right side up, even though the box is upside down.

"Look at that, the gravity core must be up and running again!" I say, pretending he can hear me as I grip his wrists and start dragging.

_This is the second time I'm dragging this gangly man into the T.A.R.D.I.S unconscious. _

_He owes me big time._


	44. So Very Human 15

My first order of business is to change the Doctor out of his marshy, grubby suit, and into some of those adorable jammies of his. I don't feel awkward or embarrassed, not at all, because I'm entirely too worried to feel anything but unease.

He just lays there, stock still. He doesn't respond when I call his name, or smack his cheeks, or pinch his arm, or jump on his bed. Nothing I'm trying is working.

So, once I've got him settled in his own orange sheets, I tear myself away to go shower and get ready for sleep.

_You'd think that being out for ten hours would have me waking up feeling great, well-rested! _

I guess that's not how tranquilizers work, because as I stand in the doorway between my room and the Doctor's, I feel like I've been awake for every single moment of the past twenty four hours. I keep standing though, for five… ten… fifteen minutes. Hoping that if I stick around for just a little longer, he'll wake up.

"Oh, what's the use? I'm not going to sleep anyway." I grumble, and go to flop down on the Doctor's bed.

I take a deep breath, staring at the pulsing orange lights on his ceiling.

_If he's still not awake tomorrow… I swear, I'm going to teach myself to fly the T.A.R.D.I.S, go to Amazonia, dip him in the river, then see if our arachnid friend can do something to wake him up. _

_I'd wake up from a coma if someone threatened to hand me over to that thing._

I shudder, thinking of that spider, my worst nightmare. I sigh when I feel the slight itch of the Vinvocci skin swirling on my hand again.

_Seems that will be a regular occurrence. _

_Great. I have a sporadically green hand. Totally normal._

I check my strange pulse again, reveling in the newness of it. Then I turn onto my side, brushing my wildly curly hair out of my face.

"Doctor. It's time to be awake now. You've been out for quite long enough, don't you think?" I say softly, and when he still doesn't stir, I feel my heart deflate… no, my hearts deflate… for the hundredth time.

I alternate between resting my eyes and watching the Doctor for signs of consciousness for what could be twenty minutes or twenty hours.

_I'm too tired to know._

* * *

_ Fingers brushing across my cheek, gentle and feathery._

I don't dare open my eyes. I'd rather explode into a million pieces than interrupt whatever is happening here.

My lips tingle as a thumb ghosts over them lightly, and I feel my untamed hair being pushed back from my face.

I can't hold back the smile any longer then, and I open my eyes to see my favorite Time Lord, the only Time Lord, awake and very alert. He's propped up on an elbow, his gold eyes clear of disease, blessedly awake.

Relief pours through me, and my hearts kick up a gear at his close proximity.

"Hello." He says, his voice gruff from not using it for so many hours.

"Hello." I say back, and launch myself up to pull him down into a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay. I thought…"

I can't even finish the sentence, mostly because I didn't know what to think at the time.

_ I don't even know what to think of myself…_

"So…" He says, pulling away to give me that infamous raised brow, "Vin-Human-Lord."

I can't stop the surprise from flooding my features.

_No, but he was out! Completely unconscious, how would he know already?_

_Unless..._

"You let me think, for almost an entire day and a half, that you were in a coma…" I say, my voice starting to seethe, "You… You… Complete jerk! What, you couldn't open an eye, twitch a hand, something to let me know you were okay?"

"Evy, I'm sorry, but that just isn't how it works! I couldn't have done any of that if I had tried with every ounce of energy in me. Do you know how much concentration it takes to control normally autonomous bodily functions?"

I just curl up into his sheets testily, pulling the covers up to my face. He smiles a little.

"I had to focus, otherwise I'd be the Jolly Green Giant, kind of like you…" He says, his voice teasing a little. I look down at my hand, seeing the swirls of green rising and dancing across my skin.

Suddenly I feel very self-conscious.

_I'm like… Frankenstein's monster, or something._

"You must be upset with me." I say, pulling my hand under the covers, hiding the eyesore.

"Upset? Why would I be upset?" He says, propping himself back up on his elbow.

"Well… I mutated an entire planet, an entire species. We've all got this weirdo second heart now, an unnatural mixture of blood proteins. I mean, if you think about it, the Vinvocci are gone because of me. They're not truly the Vinvocci now."

He stares levelly at me for a few moments, and his silence causes anxiety to well up in me.

"And I'm… well, I don't even know what I am. I'm a freak. Part Vinvocci, part Human, part Time Lord. There's so many things I don't know about myself, that it's terrifying, and I know you probably-"

Suddenly his hands grip my arms and I'm pulled over to him, my body flush on top of his. And he is kissing me.

_Sweet mother of pearl, he is kissing me._

_He's never been the one to initiate it before. Not ever._

I suck in a wild breath between his lips and mine, gripping his shoulders when he rises to wrap his arms around me. I wiggle around to better sit myself in his lap, my legs straddling his waist, and he lets out a worshipful grumble that sends heat careening to the pit of my stomach.

"You're not a freak," He says, his lips nibbling at my neck now, "You're brilliant, Evelyn Crenshaw."

I can barely think through the frenzy of heartbeats in my ears. His lips pause on my pulse, lifting into a smile as it hammers away under his mouth. A four beat rhythm, just like his own.

"I never would have tried to change you, or the Vinvocci, but do you understand what you ended up doing?" He says, pulling himself away from me a bit, and I nearly whimper at the loss.

"The Vinvocci and Solgard, there's a reason I'd not known about them. It didn't even occur to me to think of planets that might be gone, or uninhabitable. And the Vinvocci, well… They'd been dead for ages. Eons, even. I couldn't see a timeline including them because they weren't there. Simply not there!"

I try to force my mind into coherent thought, resting my hands against his chest and doing my best to ignore his own splayed on the curve of my waist.

"Dead." I say, frowning, "What do you mean?"

"That was their extinction event, apparently. The microbial infection wiped out the entire Vinvocci race. Well, at least it should have."

I blink a few times in surprise.

"Time can be rewritten," I mutter, thinking back to what his future self had said to me that snowy night.

"Time can be rewritten." He confirms, and gives me a little shake when I don't react past that, "You saved an entire race, Evy! Changed them, maybe, but they'll live on, repopulate Solgard. Their kids will see those three suns every single day. All those people live, for generations and generations because of you."

I let out an incredulous little laugh at that.

_The T.A.R.D.I.S really went big on this one. Changing our futures wasn't enough for her, oh no! Only an entire race's future would do._

"And about mutating them… It's not the body that makes an organism what it is. No, it's so much more than that, soul and love and kindred spirituality. They're Vinvocci, they always will be Vinvocci, and you, Evy… You are so very human." He says, dipping his head to press his lips to my forehead.

A light blush sweeps across my face at that.

Then he is bursting with that energy I love so much.

"Human 2.0, that is. Anything with two hearts is automatically an upgrade. The single-heart system is so last year." He says with a grin, puffing his chest out, and I laugh finally.

"Human 2.0, huh?" I say, extricating myself from him to sit on the edge of the bed. "More like Human 1.5. Not much of a second heart, the puny thing."

The Doctor chuckles, also swinging his legs over the side of the bed. My stomach rumbles angrily, having not been fed for nearly two days.

"Well, whatever I am, I have two centuries to get used to it." I say, and he smiles so wide, I'm surprised his jaw doesn't split.

"Two centuries. Sure you want to spend them stuck with me?" He says, still grinning, but I can see the fragility in his eyes

This is him asking. Asking me to stay with him for good, and supposing I'll say no.

_So many have left him in his lifetimes. I'm not surprised he expects me to hop up and leave now._

"Now that's one thing I'm sure of," I say, standing up and stretching my arms, and then throwing him a mischievous grin, my eyes resting on his lips, "No way I'm leaving now."

* * *

**A/N**

**Okay my lovelies.**

**Evy and the Doctor are going to be having adventures for quite a while, it seems ;]**

**The story isn't over, though. There will be a second installment, I just need time to get it sorted and thought out properly. So, I just want to thank everyone who ever read a chapter, reviewed a chapter, anything! I want to thank evilpinklollipop for the brilliant idea too, you know, the thing. It just goes to prove how one review or PM can change the direction of a story so drastically, and so positively! ;]**

**You all are amazing human beings, all Whovians are, in my opinion, shining examples of humanity! Don't ever let someone tell you different, okay, because I love each and every one of you so much I can't even deal with it.**

**You've made me more confident in my writing, and happier than I can even describe to know that there are people reading my stuff and liking it.**

**Lots of love, always, and I will see you in the next story,**

**-A.**


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